f\i-.flf '^.y.V. YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift of PROF. HOLLON A. FARR LIFE OF LEO XIII FROM AN AUTHENTIC MEMOIR THIS BOOK IS ISSUED WITH THE APPROBATION AND BLESSING OP A.S A SOUVENIR OF HIS GOLDEN JUBILEE TEAR, 1887. iB^ly flB Hg^.. Suns Js^BW "Sr] Co^ivT-alu Ifl'^L ]jy L-Ltj,£5i."V,''iill5'-a± -l ^=^C^^ C^.i THE ABOVE PORTRAIT OF LEO XIII, WAS SELECTED BY HIS HOLINESS FROM B'lS OWN CABINET ANO KPESe.MTED.WITH HIS AUTOGRAPH SI&NATURE,TO rW^WEBSTeR EXPRESSLY FORTH IS BOOK RoTue.Jui-y ILI, .;8o6. TlpTn;^Tfl n'TRpilH; Life of Leo XIII FROM AN AUTHENTIC MEMOIR FURNISHED BY HIS ORDER WRITTEN WITH THE ENCOURAGEMENT, APPROBATION AND BLESSING HIS HOLINESS THE POPE BERNARD O'REILLY, D.D,, L,D, "(LAVAL.) NEW YORK CHARLES L. WEBSTER & COMPANY 1887 EnGI,and — Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivingtos, London France — Firmin Didotet Cie., Paris Germany — j. p. bachem, cologne Italy — Societa Anonima L'UNioNr; TiPOGRAFICO EDITRICE, TuRIN Spain — Espasa y CompI^, Barcelona Holland — maatschappij de katho- lieke Illustratie, 'SHERTOGENBOSCH Copyright, 1886, By BERNARD O'REILLY. (All rights reserved?) H. J. HEWITT, PRINTER AND EI.ECTROTYPER, 27 ROSE ST., N. Y. TO HIS EMINENCE JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS, Archbishop of Baltimore. Your E.minence : It is most fitting that this biography of Leo XIIL, the work of an American priest, should be dedicated to you. You have shed a new lustre on the See of Baltimore, first filled, a century ago, by John Carroll— an ever dear and honored name among Americans -since adorned by the learning of a Kenrick and the elo quence of ix Spalding, and hallowed by the apostolic virtues of the arch bishops who preceded and followed them. Two years have not passed since the Christian world beheld you, at the head of eighty-si.x prelates, opening the Third National Council of Baltimore, the most important ever held in the Neiv World. We all know now with what exceeding care the Holy Father had prepared and disposed all things for this great assemblage. He would have the work 'done there to be considered in a special manner his own. In the impossibility of presiding in person, he committed to you the charge of representing him ; he followed the proceedings of that au gust body with absorbing interest, and approved of their acts with often expressed satisfaction. In raising to the supreme honors of the Roman Purple the Aposto lic Delegate who had so admirably presided over these momentous de liberations, Leo XIII. has fulfilled the wishes and prayers of the Ame rican Church and ratified the judgment of the entire American peo ple. That Your Eminence may be spared to see Religion extend her sway while our Republic advances in all that constitutes Christian civil ization, and that the teachings and examples of the life herein sketched may become to our land the Lumen in Ccelo foretold long ago, is the prayer of Your devoted servant, BERNARD O'REILLY, S.T.D. Rome, June 3, 1886. BELOW IS THE REDUCED FAC-8IMILE OF A LETTER FROM HIS EMINENCE JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS ARCHBISHOP OF BALTIMORE, ACCEPTING THE FOREGOING DEDICATION. ...^'^C^^^ ¦««.•..£, »»t- .t,<-e_^«.«^:o j^ ,^5±- yt\J •.A^.^J C'.fte^'e ^^<^'''^J 3*.^ ^&J t^a^hjj^i.^^^ ^.i«^ ej^ «'«.' /aJ e.rk^'.rCf'y.aL.^ay7^^ a.'t," Jt^,^)t^iiJL) J.ct.Jby.if^ ^^u^-^t-a^ yjjt c^ Translation ofthe letter on the opposite page from rardlii:il Parorrhl, Tlrar of His Holiness Loo XIII. Sir: The Reverend Doctor O'Reilly has informed me of your de sire to publish the Life of Our Holy Father Leo XIIL, which he has just written with the encouragement, the approbation, and the blessing of His Holiness, from authentic and Authorized docu- .MENTS, with the concurrence and the direction of persons high pUced near the Sovereign Pontiff. I congratulate you thereupon in the interest of faith and of civil ization, to which Leo XIIL ever consecrates his genius with the devotion of a great Christian and a great Pope. While wishing your undertaking, deserving as it is of the greatest success, the divine bless ing, I have the honor to be, Your very devoted servant, L. M. PAROCCHI, Cardinal Vicar of His Holiness. Rome, April 27, i386. Mr. Charles L Webster. LETTER OF COMMENDATION FROM HIS EMINENCE JOHN CARDINAL SIMEONI, PREFECT OF THE PROPAGANDA. S. CONGREGAZIONE DI PROPAGANDA, Segreieria, N. 152. Risposta intorno alia Vita di Leone XIII. Rome, January 21, 1887. Reverend Sir : I received not long ago your two letters. I am much pleased to leam that the editing of the first volume of your Life of the Holy Father is happily approaching its completion. I congratulate both yourself and Mr. Webster on the activity and energy displayed TO MAKE OP THIS WORK A splendid one, in every way worthy of the subject, and in spite of the opposition encountered and of more than one serious difficulty met with, .-ind successfully overcome. I entertain a firm confidence, and I pray with all my heart that your united efforts may be crowned with gratifying results. Meanwhile, I also pray cmr Lord to bestow on you every blessing. Yours affectionately, JOHN CARDINAL SIMEONI, Prefect. "I'D., Archbishop of Tyre, Secretary Dr. Bernard O'Reilly. J'KOM THE ARCHBISHOP OF NE'W TfOMli. 462 Madison Avenue, New York. November 29, 1886. Mr. Charles L. Webster: Dear Sir : From your favor, of recent date, I am glad to leam that The Life of Pope Leo XIIL, written by the Rev. Dr. O'Reilly, is now completed, and will very soon be given to the public, in the Jubilee Year of the Sovereign Pontiff. From very many points of view the luminous career of Pope Leo XIII. is full of interest. In your publication this interest is enhanced, first, by the fact that the narrative is drawn from authentic sources, and next that it is presented in the graceful and polished style already so favorably known to the large circle of Dr. O'Reilly's readers. I congratulate you, therefore, on the happy thought of this important contribution to the Holy Father's Golden Jubilee, and I trust that your success will be commensurate with your enterprise and your labors in offering to us all a rare gem in a handsome setting. I am, my dear sir, Very respectfully yours, M. A. CORRIGAN, Archbishop of Neil] York. THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. The life of Leo XIII. has been devoted, next to the divine interests of souls, to the culture and advancement of letters and science. What he effected by his generous patron age and bright example in Perugia, and wherever he could exercise influence, the following chapters will fully relate. What he has effected in Rome and throughout the Catholic world during his Pontificate we shall also record there. Leo XIII. stands forth even now as one of the most cultivated scholars of the present or of any past century. His Encyclical Letters, apart from their opportuneness, their doctrinal authority, and their wonderful grasp of the moral needs and dangers of Christian society, are acknowledged to be masterpieces of literary composition, models of the purest and most exquisite Latinity. But superior to all these qualities of intellectual culture is the man's own stainless character, a saintly life lending tenfold authority to his exalted station, and to the recog nized abilities of the ruler and the statesman. The work which is here laid before the public is one that ought to commend itself to every man and woman in both hemispheres. Even those who most differ from Leo XIII. and the Church of which he is the head, are fain to acknowledge that no other teacher in modern centuries has given utter- THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. ance to such pregnant, needful, and far-reaching words of inspired wisdom. If Christian society, and with it Christian civilization, are to subsist and endure, it must be— all acknowledge it— on the basis laid down by the Pontiff in his wonderful Ency clical Immortale Dei. But all Christian men and women, to whom, in an age running so fast into the reckless extravagance and furi ous appetite for luxury and sensual enjoyment of the Im perial Roman world, the return to the Gospel ideals and practices is a cherished dream, must hail the law of Chris tian living laid down by Leo XIII. as a raising anew on high of the banner of Christ. To scholars of every land, no matter what department of learning they cultivate, the name of Leo XIII. must ever be an honored, if not a cherished, name. It is not so much that he has himself been all his life an unwearied student and an admired publicist, as that, both before and after his elevation to the Pontificate, he has been the consistent advocate and generous promoter of education in its truest and noblest sense, of a thorough education for the people as well as for the leading classes. This is clearly shown by what he attempted and achiev ed in Perugia ; by what he has strenuously endeavored to accomplish in Rome in the face of the most adverse cir cumstances ; and by the encouragement given and the sacri fices made by him, throughout Italy and the entire Christian world, to found great educational centres worthy of the age and its requirements. Nor has the world-wide fame of Leo XIII. as a scholar failed to help him less wonderfully than his diplomatic skill toward winning the confidence of governments and peoples. It is his reputation for superhuman prudence, for modera tion, and for the most varied learning that has enabled him THE A U THOR ' S PRE FA CE. I 5 to restore friendly relations between the Holy See and the most hostile non-Catholic Powers ; that has helped him to prevent an open rupture with more than one cabinet ; that has caused him to be chosen as Arbitrator between Ger many and Spain ; and that has gained him the happiness of concluding with Portugal a Concordat healing the inveterate and complicated grievances arising out of the Portuguese pro tectorate over the East-Indian churches. Enlightened public opinion, founded on the exquisite tact shown by the Pontiff in dealing with ecclesiastical matters in Great Britain, demands even now that British statesmen shall treat the Holy See with the same deference and respect shown by those of Berlin. There are mighty questions threatening the internal peace of the Three Kingdoms, which the far-see ing wisdom of the Head of Christendom and the inviolable sense of justice of the common Parent of Christians can alone solve satisfactorily and once for all. In this connection we cannot regard as without a provi dential purpose the fact that Leo XIII. is the only Pope who, since the reign of Henry VIIL, has set foot on the shores of England, and studied there the great social, political, and re ligious problems, on the solution of which depends the future of civilization. Bernard O'Reilly. Rome, June 7, 1886. Note. — The authentic manuscript Memoir, placed in our hands by THE Vatican to serve us as a guide in our narrative, is designated as MS. in our quotations throughout this volume. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PART? FIRST. chapter I. introductory. Lumen in Calo : "The Light in the Heavens"— What the reader pack will find in this Life. CHAPTER II. 33-36 Carpineto, the Birth-place of Leo XIIL— The mountain-town ; history and description— The home of the Pecci ; parents and children— Who the Pecci were— Birth of Joachim Vincent Pecci, now Leo XIII.— His Mother ; her virtues ; a model wife, mother, and Christian 37-45 CHAPTER III. Social and religious condition of Italy when Vincent Pecci was a child — Early education under the Jesuits at Viterbo and in Rome — Uncommon promise of Joachim Vincent Pecci — His early taste for Latin literature and proficiency in the language — The Countess Pecci's devotion to St. Francis of Assisi shared by her children — The Third Order of St. Francis — Va cations at Carpineto — Sickness and death of Countess Pecci . 46-62 CHAPTER IV. Leo XII. succeeds Pius VII. — He reorganizes the great schools in Rome — Vincent Pecci at the " Roman College," or Gregorian University — Success at the end of his under-graduate course — He studies philosophy and the sciences — A great disap pointment — Character and conduct of the young man of twenty — The Jubilee of 1825 — Leo XII. walking barefooted and in penitential weeds through the streets of Rome — Pious enthu siasm of the youth of the schools — Again on the hills at Car pineto 63-74 CONTENTS. 1 7 CHAPTER V. DRAWN TO THE SERVICE OF GOD. .¦\raong the divinity students of the Roman College — Rising above page his fellows — How the great Jesuit school fostered a noble in tellectual arabition — In the Academy or College of Nobles — Aiming higher and higher still — The University of Sapienza — The holy friendships formed by Joachim Pecci — Cardinals Sala and Pacca prize him — Initiated in the science of administra tion — Pecci ably assists Cardinal Sala during the cholera — Holy Orders: sub-deaconshipand deaconship— The beautiful church in which Cardinal Odescalchi ordained Joachim Pecci — The saintly memories which cluster around the tomb of St. Stanislas Kostka — The monument of Charles Emmanuel IV., King of Sardinia and Piedmont, who died an humble lay- brother here — ^Joachim Pecci ordained a priest, Dec. 31, 1837 Appendix A and B : The University of Sapienza 75-86 PARX SBCOND. ADMINISTRA TIVE AND DIPLOMA TIC CAREER. CHAPTER VI. Delegate or Governor of Benevento at twenty-eight — Peculiar dif ficulties in his way — Dangerous illness — The people praying for his recovery — Recovery ; energetic administration — How Monsignor Pecci dealt with smugglers and brigands — How he treated guilty nobles — The young Governor a true statesman — How he develops the resources of the province — His recall ; death of his Father Appendix C: The College of Car dinals 89-99 CHAPTER VII. Monsignor Pecci appointed Delegate or Governor of Umbria — First acquaintance with Perugia — The cause of unrest in the Papal States— What Mazzini and Young Italy wanted — Mon signor Pecci's practical mind — Reception of Gregory XVI. in Umbria — His extreme satisfaction with Mgr. Pecci — Reforms effected in the province by the Delegate — Not a single criminal in the prisons of Perugia — Recalled to Rome , 100-107 1 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER Vin. NUNCIATURE IN BELGIUM. Monsignor Pecci appointed Nuncio to Belgium— Consecraled p^ck Archbishop of Damietta— Constitutional Government in Bel gium— The country a fair battle-ground between religion and irreligion— Birth of the Belgian Constitution— The King— The school question in Belgium— Its extreme importance in that countr)' — Impression made by Archbishop Pecci at the Court of Brussels — A saintly Queen and hjr influence — The unde nominational University of Brussels — The Catholic College of St. Michael — Lively interest taken by the Nuncio in this institution — The Belgian Episcopate revive the University of Louvain — Monsignor Pecci in Louvain — Difficult position of the Nuncio between the political parties — His qualities and personal influence as remembered by Belgians — He interferes between Catholics themselves — He advises the founding in Rome of the Belgian College — The people of Perugia ask the Pope to give them for bishop Monsignor Pecci 108-124 CHAPTER IX. STUDYING LONDON, PARIS, AND ROME. Universal regret in Belgium at Monsignor Pecci's recall — Joachim Pecci in London — Knowledge obtained about the Three King doms — Joachim Pecci in Paris —Court and throne on a vol cano — Joachim Pecci in Rome — The Pope sick to death — His true character and services — First acquaintance with Pius IX. — What the Archbishop-Bishop of Perugia s.iw in Rome in the first month of Pius IX. 's reign — The true story about Monsignor Pecci's appointment to the See of Perugia — He visits Assisi before entering Perugia — How his people received him — Why he entered Perugia on the Feast of St. Ann : the sweet memory of his Mother — The Perugians, and the revolu tionary passions at work among them — Forecast 125-138 PART THIRD. JOACHIM PECCrS GLORIOUS EPISCOPATE IN PERUGIA. CHAPTER X. PREPARING FOR THE BATTLE. Education the first care of the Bishop of Perugia — He takes for his model in this St. Charles Borromeo — The true need of the Italian populations in 1S46. I. Education of the Clergy: I. What the Memoir says about his educational labors— The CONTENTS. 19 Diocesan Seminary " the apple of his eye " — His generous and pace intelligent expenditure — His attention to perfect order and dis cipline — Strong and careful culture — He calls attent'on to the scientific method of St. Thomas Aquinas — What his method really is — '¦Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas "... .2. La boring to raise the level of spiritual as well as that of intellec tual culture— How such husbandry was rewarded— Testimony frora the Memoir 141-155 CHAPTER XI. PREPARING FOR THE BATTLE. II. The Second Education of the Clergy — Sanctity and Science: I. Walking with them in the paths of holiness^He makes them his joint fellow-laborers in all pastoral charities — Tes timony from the Me.moir — His own private life a mirror — Rules of Conduct for his priests — " An exemplary and labo rious life "....2. The)' must be learned; they are the ex pounders and defenders of Revealed Truth 156-165 CHAPTER XII. IN THE BATTLE. III. The Bishop in the conflict defends and protects his priests — The Revolution resolves to extinguish the Priesthood — Car dinal Pecci's defensive measures — Pastoral Letter — Society for redeeming clerical students from enforced military service — His society eminently successful — Needs of the clergy, beggared by the "sequestration " and " incameration " of ec clesiastical property — A private relief fund established at the Cardinal's instance — The Royal exequatur forbidding bishop or priest from being installed in office or drawing their revenues without Government license — The military law compelling priests to serve in the ranks of the army — Magni ficent Remonstrance drawn up by Cardinal Pecci and ad dressed to the King — A courageous arraignment of the Revo lution, of the King himself, and his Ministers — They simply want to extinguish religion and morality in Italy, and to make it impossible to send missionaries abroad 166-175 CHAPTER XIII. JOACHIM PECCI THE GREAT BENEFACTOR OF PERUGIA. A pregnant chapter — A bird's-eye view of the entire field of the Bish:5p's activity — Famine and earthquakes desolating Um bria — What the son of Anna Pecci did and made others do — 20 CONTENTS. The devoted Bishop and Good Shepherd in i36o, when the city page was stormei by the Piedmontese — Death-struggle between the Church and the Revolution — Cardinal Pecci confronts the enemies of religion as the leader of his brother-bishops and the Champion of Religion— What the Memoir says — Female education not neglected in the struggle — Defending the Ladies of the Sacred Heart — Institutions founded, or improved, for every want of soul or body, for all classes, sexes, and ages — All-embracing charity — Cardinal Pecci's Pastoral Visitations of his diocese — His zeal in building and restoring churches ; his great generosity 1 76—194 CHAPTER XIV. IN THE BATTLE. Cardinal Pecci, as Bishop of Perugia, undertakes to thoroughly enlighten his people on the errors'of the day — Pastoral Letter on the abuses of magnetism....!. His Pastoral on the Tem poral Dominion of the Holy See — An admirable exposition of the entire Roman Question — Prophetic picture of what was to be the position in Rome of Pius IX. and Leo XIII. — Cardinal Pecci reveals the secret designs of the Revolutionary conspi rators — A strong appeal to the Perugians— The traditional devotion to the Popes of the old mediaeval city. . . .II. Fidel ity to Pius IX. in the face of the triumphant Revolution — Joachim Pecci the well-inspired spokesman of his brethren — He indignantly denounces the frauds of the Piedmontese, and spurns, in their name, the bribes offered to bishops and priests 195-214 CHAPTER XV. THE FIERCE BATTLE WITH ANTI-CHRIST. I. Cardinal Pecci defends the liberty of the Church— England and France in 1859-61 siding with the powers of evil— Terrible propaganda of impiety and immorality all through Central Italy in those years— Eloquent Remonstrance of the Arch bishop and Bishops of the Marches— Joint Protest of the Arch bishops and Bishops of Umbria, drawn up by Cardinal Pecci —The noble appeal for the rights of Christian truth and freedom .... II. Cardinal Pecci's defence of the Christian Fam- iV^— Christian matrimony set aside by the Piedmontese in vaders—Memorable Declaration dr.iwn up by the Cardinal in the name of his Brother-Bishops-His noble letter to the King on the same subject— Consequences of this anti-Chris tian law-A golden lesson for American statesmen and CONTENTS. 21 churchmen on divorce laws.... III. Cardinal Pecci enlighten- page ing the Christian homes of his people — His beautiful Pastoral on Current Errors and Christian Life — ^Words deserving of being printed in letters of gold — " Scientific instruction without religious teaching will give you clever young men and women ; religious education will give you honest and virtuotis citizens " 215-239 CHAPTER XVI. T7ie Battle for his Clergy growing fiercer — The worst enemies and persecutors of the clergy were apostate priests — Terrible in dictment against them of Cardinal Newman — Numbers of these returning into the States of the Church with the Pied montese armies — They inspired and encouraged the worst laws against the Church — Abolition of the courts which had condemned them — Education, charity, and beneficence secu larized — The Religious Orders abolished by the Rojfal Commis sary, Marquis Pepoli — Protest of Cardinal Pecci — Sacrileges committed in Perugia — The indignant Letter to the King in favor oi the Religious Orders — Another indignant remon strance to the King on the suppression of the Monastery of Monte Corona — The commissary has done everything to thwart the King's merciful intentions — Incredible duplicitj' and cruel ty — All these steps availed nothing — Cardinal Pecci sued be fore the courts and acquitted — Multitudes of Religious of both sexes dispossessed of everything and reduced to extreme want — His efforts to relieve them — He once more resists the exercise of the ^oyaX exequatur — His noble protest against this enslaving of the Church — The new legislation subjects every function and act of the bishop and priest to the inspection of State functionaries— A terrible arraignment in his Collective Letter to the King — All the Government persecutions and pun ishments are for the good and faithful priests ; all the favors and rewards for the fractious and the wrong-doer 240-259 CHAPTER XVII. A pause in the conflict ; two family feasts — i. Celebrating Joachim Pecci's elevation to the Cardinalate. . . .2. Perugia celebrates his Episcopal Silver Jubilee — Feasting with sad hearts — Pro phetic significance of the public prayers. .. .3. Made protec tor of the Franciscan Third Order — A spiritual feast at Assisi — The most effective reform for the whole of Christian society everywhere — How people in the world can be Christ like — Joachim Pecci striving to restore the Divine Ideal — The beautiful spirit and more beautiful life of Francis of Assisi. . . 260-276 2 2 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVIII. 1877. I. Cardinal Pecci at the Golden Jubilee of Pius IX.— How the page Piedmontese Government attempted to mar the universal joy —Cardinal Pecci, at the head of the Italian Episcopate, ad dressing Pius VS..— Crux de Cruce and Lumen in Cailo 2. Cardinal de Angelis dies ; Cardinal Pecci appointed Car dinal Camerlengo— The shadow of the coming cross 3. The light still shining brightly on Perugia— Last Pastoral Letters on the "Church and Civilization "—The first mention in his writings of the Xulturkampf—T)ed,lh of Pius IX.— Last words to the Church of Perugia 277-292 PART FOURTH. THE PONTIFICA TE. CHAPTER XIX. I. The Conclave : Would the Cardinals be allowed to elect freely? — Cardinal Pecci's firm but prudent counsels — Protest of the Sacred College against the title of King of Italy assumed by Umberto I. — Precautions for the secrecy and security of the Conclave — Opening of the Conclave — First Ballot : 23 votes for Cardinal Pecci ; his fears ; ~the shadow of the cross — Second Ballot: 38 votes for Cardinal Pecci; intolerable dread ; the shadow deepens ; he wants to protest, but is pre vented — Third Ballot : 44 votes out of 6i for Cardinal Joachim Pecci— Bowing to the Divine Will — " By what name do 3'OU wish to be called ?" — " By the name of Leo XIII." — ^Joy in Rome — Astonishment and joy in Perugia 295-315 CHAPTER XX. II. Lumen in Ccelo — Congratulations from all the Catholic Powers — The first Papal blessing given within the Basilica of St. Peter — The second Prisoner of the Vatican— Crowned in the privacy of the Vatican— The greeting of Catholic Spain to Leo XIII. — Illumination in Rome— The police allow the roughs to smash all lighted windows— The first acts of Leo XIII. . Restoration of the Scotch Hierarchy; Encouraging young Arti san Societies in P.iris ; Encouraging Belgian noblemen to do the same for workingmen— The noble Consistorial AMocution of March 28— First Encyclical Letter, Inscrutabili, of April 21— The Italians expected a "liberal policy"; disappointed— CONTENTS. 23 The ONE great prominent idea in this and in all Leo XIII.'s page teachings is the absolute necessity of Christianity, that is, of the Church, to hum, in society — Analysis of this Encyclical — Contrast between societj' in the ages when Christianity was reverenced and made the law of life, and ihe irreligious society of the present age — True and false civilization — What the Popes have done for civilization and humanity in the past — Special benefits conferred by them on Italy — He demands the restoration of the liberty of the Holy See — Impressive appeal to sovereigns, rulers, statesraen not to reject or neglect the aid to be found in the Church and Religion of Christ — Educa tion — The Family — He urges all bishups to disseminate a sound knowledge of Christian Doctrine — Necessity of a sound philosophy for all the sciences, for sacred science in particular — Domestic educati n and the Christian family — Great utility of confraternities or pious guilds Appendix D: The right of veto in Papal elections 316-342 CHAPTER XXI. Anti-Christ solemnly defies Leo XIII. in Rorae — Apotheosis of Vol taire — -Cardinal Franchi Secretary of State — He raakes a jour- ne3' to Ireland— Dies, and is replaced bj' Cardinal Nina — Im portant letter of the Pope to the latter, sketching out the policj' he has pursued and intends for the future to follow — Appeal to sovereigns and rulers to accept the aid of the Church — In tolerable tyranny of the Italian Government — Letters of the Pope to the Emperor of Russia and the President of the Swiss Confederacy — The centenary of the death of Voltaire celebrated in Rorae by all the anti-Christian societies of France and Italy — A carnival of impiety and blasphemy — It was a solemn de claration of war to the death against the Head of the Christian Church— Acts of solemn reparation by Romans and other European Catholics — The clerical students of the Diocese of Rome visit the Holy Father — The Roman Government forbids the Catechism to be taught in the primary schools — Atheism to be everywhere an inflexible rule in public instruction 343-360 CHAPTER XXII. 1878-1879. Difficulties of the new Pontificate — Pilgrims — Solicitude for France and Germany — Encyclical on Socialism — 7^he first ]\jTiil.v.K — Leo XIII.'s thorough knowledge of the situ.ition of the Papacy in Rome and of the Church throughout Ital)- — Consolations dur ing the summer of 1878 — Pilgrims from German)' — Letter to 24 CONTENTS. the Corporation of Cork— Pilgrims from Spain — Their cruel page detention by the officials at Civita Vecchia— Impolicy of an noying or insulting pilgrims — Congress or raeeting of Catho lic journalists in Rome— Address of the Holy Father — Elo quent Letter to the Archbishop of Cologne — Encyclical on Socialism — Description and history of this error — Difference between France and Germany with regard to Socialism — Effects of the Encyclical in the latter country — Lessons for statesmen in all lands — Light breaking in the East 3^1-379 CHAPTER XXIIL LEO XIII. and the eastern PEOPLES. I. Leo XIII. and the Slavonic Races — Terrible persecutions against Catholics in Russia — -Advances made by the Rus'^ian Govern raent in June, 1877 — Cardinal Simeoni sends for the Czar's perusal an official statement of grievances — Returned uncere moniously without explanation or excuse — The Pope dismisses the Russian Ambassador — Leo XIII.'s endeavor to conciliate — Letter to Alexander II — The two Archdukes, Sergius and Paul, visit Rome — Sudden death of the Emperor — Centenary of the Apostles of the S'avs, SS. Cyril and Methodius, in 1880 — Encyclical on their labors — Great enthusiasm among the Slavs — A numerous pilgrimage — Creation of a regular Epis copal Hierarchy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. . . .2. The Greeks, and the Peoples who cling to the Greek Liturgy — The Greek National College of St. Athanasius in Rome, founded in 1577 hy Gregory XIIL, enlarged by Leo XIII., and the course of studies widened and iraproved. . . .3. Eastern Peoples of the Ottoman Empire — An object of most especial solici tude to Leo XIII. from the beginning of his reign — The Sublime Porte learns to prize the salutary influence of the Church — -The Babylonian Patriarch, Mgr. Abolionan, officially confirmed by the Sultan — Appeasement of the bloody feud be tween the Nestorian Jacobites in Syria and the Catholics. . . .4. End of the Armenian Schism — A repetition in Turkey of the drama of the " Old-Catholic Church" in German)' — "Infalli bility" the cloak of ambition and cause of schism — Singu lar wisdom of Leo XIII.'s clemency to the first repentant sinner; all the others return in succession to the fold — Mon signor Hassun, the Armenian Patriarch, the champion of Faith among the Armenians — He is created a cardinal and made to reside in Rome — Leo XIII. founds in Rome a national college for the Armenians — The Chaldeans have also flourishing seminaries at Mossoul under the Dominicans. .. .A^o/^ .• Leo XIII. intended central universities in Athens and Con stantinople 380-397 25 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIV. LEO XHI. AND THE EASTEKN PF.liPLKS. II. Persia, China, and Japan — i. The students of the Propaganda page and the Ottoman Empire — The Emperor of Persia ; his real character — His oldest son, Prince Zel-el-Sultan, most favor able to the Christians — The third, or youngest son, Naib Sultaneh, equally tolerant and liberal — The Lazarists the effi cient missionaries in the Persian Empire — Archbishop Thomas, a Lazarist, and Apostolic Delegate, reports favorably to Rome — Leo XIII. sends the two princes the Grand Cross of Pius IX. — Solemn presentation of the insignia to the princes. . . .2. Letter of the Pope to the Emperor of China — Opening of direct diplomatic intercourse with the Court of Pekin 3. Letter of Leo XIII. to the Emperor of japan — Favorable dispositions towards the Catholic religion in Japan — Letter to the King of the Shoa Gallas — How Christian civilization can be promoted by commercial enterprise 39S-407 CHAPTER XXV. LEO xm. and great BRITAIN. I. Gratitude of the Popes for the liberty enjoyed by Catholics in the English-speaking world — The old anti-Papist feeling in Eng land in 1850 ; a brief manifestation — Growth and prosperity of the Church in Great Britain from 1S50 to 1878 — The revival in the land of St. Margaret — The sweet hope of a revival of true charit)' between the islands with the return of the true Faith — The restoration of the Hierarchy in Scotland the first official act recorded of Leo XIII.'s Pontificate— Beautiful lan guage addressed to Scotland — The unfulfilled hope of Pius IX. now an accomplished fact — Eloquent appeal to Scotch Catholics — The hills of Scotland put on gladness — The spirit of St. Margaret and Sl David abroad.... 2. The Apostolic Constitution Romanos Pontifices — The glorious story of mis sionary devotion which led to the relative positions of the old Regular Orders and the restored Hierarchy of England and Scotland — Traditional love of the Holy See for the nation — The national character— Happy settlement of all the present difficulties 408-420 CHAPTER XXVI. LEO XIII. AND IRELAND. Why Leo XIII. desires to see a cordial union between England and Ireland — The conditions of such a union — The cause of 25 CONTENTS. chronic famine and unrest-The true genesis of crime in Ire- page land— What Leo XIII. would have seen in Ireland in the autumn of 1879— The Land League— To stop agrarian vio lence and stifle secret associations the clergy must have the confidence and control of the people— The National Part) The marvellous power of organization— Letter of Leo XIII. to the Irish Hierarchy in January, 1883—" The raost righteous cause dishonored by iniquitous means "—Appeal to Irish men's love for the Catholic name — Confidence that the British Government will grant satisfaction to the just claims of Irish men—New difficulties— Second Letter of the Pope— The just cause of the country to be kept apart from the plots of secret conspirators— The Propaganda Circular — Death of Cardinal McCabe— The Pope confirms the election of Dr. Walsh — What Leo XIII. recommends to Irishmen 421-435 CHAPTER XXVII. Funeral of Pius IX.— h&o XIII. recounts the inhuman outrages of the mob who assailed the funeral cortege of Pius IX. — Min ister Mancini's disingenuous statements — Absolute necessity of the Pope's being Sovereign in Rome 436-440 CHAPTER XXVIIL LEO xiii. and the UNITED STATES. First official act in 1884 to convene the Third National Council of Baltimore — The Archbishops summoned to Rome in the No vember preceding — The coming; Council the most important and numerous ever held in the New World — Retrospect : What the United States were when Joachim Pecci was born ; the twofold fact underl)'ing the unparalleled prosperity of the American Republic: i. The people a religious people; 2. They were a practical, conservative people — Their institu tions, hallowed by religion at their birth in the far past, the outgrowth of their social life — The American Revolution, or War of Independence, conservative, not revolutionarj' — The same type preserved in every new State organized — The French Re volution of 1789 essentially destructive — Maryland alone con tained originally the nucleus of a Catholic population — Its Catholic sons foremost in devotion to the Union — Birth of the Catholic Hierarchy — The Irish Catholic element — The Ger mans— Religion the great formative force in the United States CONTENTS. 27 — Meeting in November, 1884, of the National Council— pace Eighty-three prelates telegraph to the Holy Father — Pro ceedings of the Council— Courtesy and kindness of the Bal- timoreans — The Pastoral Letter of the Council ; a wonderful document — The warm, patriotic spirit of the Fathers of the Third National Council — Their estimate of Leo XIII. — Edu cation the chief care of the Council and of the Pope — The Pope and the National Catholic University of America— Ele vation to the Cirdinalate of the Archbishops of Baltimore and Quebec 441-459 CHAPTER XXIX. LEO XIIl. AND GERMANY. The German Difficulty the greatest inherited from the preceding Pontificate — History of the Kulturkampf, or " Civilization Conflict " — Admirable organization and cohesion of the Catho lic Party in Germany — The spirit which animates their yearly assemblages or congresses — The " Old-Catholic Church " — A cruel policy doomed to end in discomfiture — Results of the Kulturkampf — The fruits it had borne in October, 1878 — Prince Bismarck tells the story of his hopes of Leo XIII. and of his early negotiations with him — He enforces in Prussia the pro- scriptive and persecuting legislation of the first Stuarts in Eng land and Ireland— The fear of "going to Canossa" — Law of June 5, 1883 — Fearful condition of Prussian Catholics at that time — The Polish Question a disturbing element — If Bismarck could come to think about Poland as Gladstone does about Ireland — End of the Kulturkampf 460-480 CHAPTER XXX. LEO XIII. AND higher STUDIES. Anxiety to provide truly Catholic primary and intermediate schools as the nurseries for his universities — -Letters to Cardinals Mo naco la Valletta and Parocchi — His zeal for the revival of Chris tian Philosophy — His purpose of enthroning St. Thomas Aquinas as the " Angel of the Schools " — Leo XIII. and true SCIENCE — Reforming all education on Christian principles — Encyclical of August 4, 1879, o" Christian Philosophy — His description of St. Thomas Aquinas and his method — Enthu siasm among Catholic scholars — Reforms in the schools of higher studies in Rome — His great care in raising the stand ard of education among the clergy of the Diocese of Rome — His letter to Cardinal Parocchi — Outcome of this letter 481-494 28 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXI. LEO XIII. AND FRANCE. The self-destruction progressing in France a unique spectacle in page history— The task before Leo XIII. in 1S78 of saving France from the suicidal folly of French irreligion — Accounting for the conflicting good and evil in France— What Joachim Pecci beheld there in 1846.'. . .The Good : Wonderful revival of re ligion — The overflowing missionary spirit — A revival of the apostolic fervor which evangelized North America — This chivalrous religious spirit characteristic of ancient as of modern Catholic France.— The Evil : Voltaire implants anti- Christian impiety ; the " Philosophers " inculcate scepticism — The good and the evil struggling for the mastery in 1846 — Progress of Catholic institutions down to 1878— Progress of anti-Catholic teaching and passions — Which force will overcome the other ? — The secret anti-Christian societies masters of the Government and of France in 1878 — The ma- jorit)' and the minority in the population of France — Sum of active forces in each — Armed resistance out of the question — Organization, cohesion, unity of purpose and action necessary among Catholics — These elements did not exist — What was Leo XIII. to do? — 1880: Suppression of the Religious Or ders — Letter of Leo XIII. to Cardinal Guibert — A noble de fence of the Religious Orders — It was only shouting at Niagara to stop its rushing waters — The majority of the French nation disfranchised virtually — How French Republicans understand liberty — Leo XIII. severely blamed by Frenchmen — Elections of 1885 — Letter of Cardinal Guibert to President Grevy— A prophetic voice from France 495-521 CHAPTER XXXII. LEO XIII. AND THE SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. The great missionary school of the Propaganda— Annual Academy held on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany— In 1880 the Academy held in the Vatican — Protestant admiration for this College and for the Congregation de Propaganda Fide, on which it depends— For a truly Catholic Italy the Propaganda would be a wonderful source of influence abroad — The Pied montese Government determined to extinguish the institution — First seizure and sale of its property in 1874— Lawsuits end ing in decree of January 29, 1884, decreeing the conversion of its property into state bonds— Leo XIII.'s protests on March 2 and March 24— Diplomatic note of February lo to the Ca tholic Powers— Effect of this act of the Piedmontese Govern ment on public opinion abroad 522-538 CONTENTS. 29 CHAPTER XXXIII. LEO XIII. AND SPAIN. "The Prince of Peace" — Papal Mediation — Its necessity acknow- page ledged by non-Catholic writers — The mediatorial office an un mitigated blessing — This is demonstrated by the mediation of Leo XIII. between Spain and Germany — History of the diffi culty about the Carolinas Islands — Prince Bismarck offers to submit the question of right to the Pope ; accepted by Spain — Speedy termination of the inquiry — Judgment accepted and ratified by both Governments — Death of Alfonso XII. — Leo XIII.'s account of the mediation — Restoration of this media torial office of the Papacy most desirable — It would be a boon to the nations — Interest taken by the Pope in the shrine of St. James at Compostella — History of the shrine — Pope Calixtus II. and Compostella — The relics of St. James and his disci ples hidden away in the sixteenth century — Rediscovered by Cardinal Paya — The question of authenticity submitted to Leo XIII. — He sends Monsignor Caprara to Compostella — Decision of the Pope — The birth of Alfonso XIII. — The Pope his godfather Appendix E : Mediation 539-561 CHAPTER XXXIV. The Prisoner of the Vatican and the Jubilee of 1887 562-576 Appendixes 579-587 ILLUSTRATIONS. All the illustrations in this work are full-page engrav ings executed by the BEST AMERICAN ENGRAVERS, from orTginal photographs SENT FRO^I ROME expressly for this book. None of them have ever before appeared in print, and they form a valuable and interesting ADDITION to the life of the illustrious Pontiff. page Fine steel engraving of the Pope, engraved from a photograph pre sented by the Holy Father, with his autograph signature, expressly for this book Frontispiece St. Peter's in Montorio, erected on the spot where St. Peter, the first Pope, was crucified head downwards 35 Panoramic View of the Village of Carpineto, birthplace of Leo XIII. . 39 The house in which Leo XIIL was born at Carpineto 48 Church of St. Leo, C.irpineto, attended by His Holiness when a boy. . 54 Interior of the Church of St. Leo, Carpineto, restored by Leo XIII. . . 61 Fine colored plate accurately representing Leo XIII. in his Audience Chamber, clothed in his Pontifical robes facing 113 Door of the Municipal Hall, Cathedral Square, Perugia 146 Cathedral Square, Perugia, showing the great Foun1.3.in, the Municipal Hall on the left, and the Cathedral on the right, where Leo XIII. was Bishop for thirty-two years 159 Quirinal Palace — old Palace of the Popes 179 Tomb of Pius IX. in the Church of San Lorenzo, outside the walls of Rome 191 The Tiber • St. Peter's in the distance ; Castle and Bridge of St. Angelo 211 Panoramic View of Rome from the Roof of St. Peter's 223 Front View of St. Peter's and the Vatican 247 Interior of St. Peter's Church 255 Palace of the Vatican— Residence of the Pope 273 Fine colored plate accurately representing the officers and guards of the Palace of the Vatican, in full uniform facing 304 His Holiness taking recreation in the Garden of the Vatican 337 Interior of the Vatican Library 369 Pio Clementino Hall of Statuarv, Vatican Museum 401 Interior of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican 443 Braccio Nuovo : Statuary Collection, Vatican Museum 489 Museo Chiaramonti-V.Ttican Gallery of Ancient Sculpture 519 Garden of the Pope, Vatican, Recreation Place of His Holiness 541 Leo XIII. on his Throne in his Priv.ite Audience Room 564 Fine steel engraving of Lucido Maria Parocchi, Cardinal Vicar to His Holiness , . facing 573 ^o Part First. EARLY LIFE OF JOACHIM PECCI TILL HIS ELEVATION TO THE PRIESTHOOD, INCLUSIVELY. March 2, T%\a-Dec. 31, 1837. CHAPTER I. .Auguror : Apparent flamraantia lumina coelo, Sidereoquc rubens fulget ab axe dies.— Leo XIIL, Poems. ' £ I 'LL through the long Pontificate of Pius IX., espe- ^*-*-* cially when troubles thickened around him, peo ple could not help* saying that the words Cnix dc Criicc — '¦ Cross upon Cross " — of the celebrated prophecy attribut ed to St. Malachy, were verified in his bitter and prolonged trials. While writing, in 1878, the Life of that Pope, the Author could not help asking himself. Who was to be his -successor? For the prophecy depicts the Pontiff taking up the cross laid down by Pius .as " Light in the Heavens " — I^ittiicii in Ccelo. Truly the unprecedentedly long reign of the late Pope had closed with the darkest days ever known to the Papacy since the times of the early persecutions. The States of the Church had been absorbed by the new kingdom of Italy. In the palace of the Quirinal was throned a power more hostile to everything Catholic than Henry VIII. or Elizabeth, and supported by a Parliament whose policy and principles are infinitely more irreconcilable with Catholicism than the policy and principles of Cromwell and his Parliament. The two most powerful empires in Europe, those of Germany and Russia, had broken off all diplomatic intercourse with him who was, in a very true sense, " the Prisoner of the Vatican." Republican France, in the hands of Voltairean sceptics and radical revolution ists, was with difficulty withheld from breaking openly with the Pope. Spain was friendly, but powerless to' help him. Austria, like Belgium and Portugal, was secretly ruled by these occult but powerful organizations, which gave the law to the President of the French Republic, as well as to the successor of Victor Emmanuel. Great Britain, 3 .w 54 LIFE OF LEO XIII. which had efficiently aided in despoiling the Pope of his States, never had, since the reign of James II., sent an official representative to the Holy See ; and the Repub lican Congress of the United States had, after our war, and forgetful of the thousands of Catholics who had died for the Union, suppressed the American Legation at the Vatican. It was an ungenerous and impolitic act, which another Congress and President will not fail to undo in the near future. But meanwhile Pius IX. died, seemingly abandoned by all the nations who could help him effectually, and given over to the absolute dominion of the power which had stripped him of everything save the precarious tenure of the Vatican and its garden, with the mockery of a sove reign title, and which at any time could seize the Vatican itself and leave the Pope without a roof in Rome or in all Italy he could call his own. It was dark indeed. And how and whence was the light to come amid this settled and ever-deepening gloom above St. Peter's and the venerable seat of an authority which had outlived that of the Caesars, of Charlemagne and the Germano-Roman emperors who succeeded to his title ? The bright, solitary star which, in the ancient family escutcheon of the Pecci,* sheds so brilliant a radiance on the earth beneath, might, and doubtless did, to some per sons appear an augury of coming dawn, of hope of better things for the Papacy, for Christianity itself. But, leaving out of the question the prophecy and its suggestions, there is in the brief reign of Leo XIII. enough of splendid achievement to justify the pregnant words of the prediction, had it been authentic. Against all seeming hope, against all the most solemn utterances of political prophets in both hemispheres, the moral superiority which Leo XIII. established for himself by his noble character, by the firm but gentle dignity of his official letters, and by the incomparable eloquence and elevation of his solemn * See Coat of .-Vrms of Leo XIII. on the cover. St PETER'S IN Montorio. Erected on the Spot where St. Peter, the First Pope, was GRUorFiEo Head downwards. 36 LIFE OF LEO XIII. teachings addressed to the Universal Church, has dis armed prejudice and hostihty. As we write it is hoped that Germany is again renewing with the Holy See the friendly relations of other times, repealing the oppressive laws enacted against Catholics, and paying, in the eyes of the civilized world, the most exalted homage to the per sonal character and sovereign rank of the Roman Pontiff. At the same time Russia, which had already made ap proaches toward conciliation, is said to be sending a spe cial envoy to negotiate about the sad condition of Polish Catholics and other delicate and difficult religious matters in the empire. Great as is this result, brilliant as is, assuredly, the light shed from the Chair of Peter during the eight years already passed of this Pontificate, the life of the man himself, from his childhood to his sixty-eighth year, when chosen to fill the place of Pius IX., is one long, luminous track, marked at its every stage by the gentlest, noblest virtues, by all those qualities which endear a man to all who know and approach him, by those utterances and deeds which all who value still what is most fundamental in Christianity are sure to admire and to praise. Thus the personage whom we present to the study and admiration of the reader in the following chapters is not merely a great man, a great Pope, a great and eloquent teacher of all Christians and all mankind : he was a good and a true man in every relation of life in which he was placed ; a gentle, docile, loving son ; a child and a boy pious and thoughtful beyond his years, but a bright, joyous, manly, generous boy. And all the sweet pro mises which blossomed forth in his boyhood and youth were realized in the rich fruits of maturer years. It is only by looking well into the life of him who is now Leo XIIL, at all its stages, that one sees how beau tiful it is. His pure, gentle, but erect figure is one Fra Angelico could have delighted to paint ; his life would have been worthy of the pen which wrote the " Fioriti di San Francesco." CHAPTER II. BIRTHPLACE — PARENTAGE — HOME AND MOTHER. ^^IVHE subject of this biography was born at Carpineto \5t^ on March 2, 1810. There are several places in Italy all but identical in name with Carpineto — called sometimes Carpineto Roma no, so called because it belonged to the territory immedi ately surrounding Rome. The most conspicuous of these localities, outside of Latium, is the ancient fortress of Carpineti, on a spur of the .(Emilian Apennines, near Reg- gio, which was a favorite residence of Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, the protectress of Pope Gregory VII. and the benefactress of the Papacy. Our Carpineto — to use the words of the authentic manu script notes given to us to be our guide in this narrative — " is a populous little town of five thousand inhabitants, situated in a cleft of the Monti Lepini," a portion of the Volscian range nearest to Velletri. " It is an eagle s nest, placed for security high above the plain, between two gigantic rocks." * In ancient times it was fortified, some parts of the ruined walls and towers still remaining to attest the fact. Within its neighborhood also stood the Volscian city of Cuentra, destroyed by the Romans, and the ancient fortress of Pruni, ruined — so the local tradi tions say — by the Duke of Alba's soldiery in the sixteenth century. Its remains are still pointed out to visitors. THE BIRTHPLACE OF LEO XIII. The mediaeval town became a feudal possession of the Aldobrandini. Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, nephew of * Such was the picturesque expression used by the venerable Cardinal Joseph Pecci in describing to the author the mountain-home of his family. 37 38 LIFE OF LEO XIII. Pope Clement VIII. (i 592-1605), built there at his own expense a monastery for Reformed Franciscan Monks, which we shall have occasion to mention more than once. Four parish churches, one of them being a collegiate church founded by Pope Clement XIV., himself a Fran ciscan, ministered to the spiritual needs of the population. Two of these were Gothic structures of the fifteenth cen tury, dating from the Pontificate of Calixtus III. (14SS-58). All of them, in the year of grace 18 10, were in a sad state of dilapidation. The French Republican soldiers had pass ed there also, committing their wonted sacrilegious pillage and destruction ; and the already scanty revenues of the parochial clergy had been reduced to the merest pittance by the Imperial Government in Rome. The elevated position of Carpineto, and its great diffi culty of access from the valley of Latium beneath, are to this day obstacles which all but a few travellers, students, or artists care to encounter. The railroad which sweeps around the eastern fliank of the Volscian range leaves wayfarers still far away from the lofty mountain-crest with its rare towns, hamlets, and ruins. And yet in the late au tumn or the lovely spring weather a drive from the nearest railway-station in the valley, Segni, up the narrowing defile or cleft in the mountain-side, through which tumbles ever a foaming torrent, is one of unmingled delight. The wild, weird, and ever-changing scenery of the defile, with its lofty walls of rock, its trees and shrubs of every shade of green ; the wild flowers that bloom on every side along the path of the stage-coach ; the luminous haze which fills the air in November, as well as in March and April, and which, as you look back into the valley or catch a glimpse of the distant hills, shrouds every distant object with a veil of every shade of blue, fading often into delicate purple ; the bracing, invigorating mountain-air — all fill one's soul with a sense of deep joy About a mile from the top your vetturino points out, at the top of a sloping green expanse between two lofty acclivities, the countiy-house of the Pecci family amid 40 LIFE OF LEO XIII. clumps of tall chestnut-trees. It is a beautiful position; and one can fancy how happy parents, surrounded by a band of joyous children, could develop mind and heart be neath yonder shades and on that greensward, from which the eye can wander over panoramas of surpassing grandeur. AN eagle's nest. But here we are on the unequal rocky plateau of Car pineto — truly an eagle's eyrie fitting in betweentwo enor mous crags. No wonder that the first Pelasgi or Etruscf who wandered hither from the East, in quest of a secure and permanent home, should have fixed upon this almost inaccessible and impregnable site. The quaint, mediaeval houses and streets straggle among the inequalities of the surface. And through them, to the very highest point of the plateau, the stage-coach labors along till it leaves yoa in front of a fifteenth-century palatial pile, with a church. adjoining and separating it from the residence of the paro chial clergy. The masters of this palace in iSio were Domenico Lodovico Pecci, then in his forty-first year, and his wife,. Anna Prosperi-Buzi, who was in her thirty-seventh. Their union has been blessed with six children — four boys and two girls — the youngest child being an infant just baptized, to whom have been given the names of Joachim Vincent Raphael Lodovico (or Louis). He is the subject of this biography. The other children are : Charles, a lad of six teen ; Anna Maria, almost twelve ; Caterina, who is in her tenth year; John Baptist, in his eighth ; and Joseph, who is- just beginning his fourth.* * Domenico Lodovico Pecci was born June 2, 1769, and died March 8,. 1S38. His wife, Anna Prosperi-Buzi, was born December 30, 1773, and died August 5, 1824. Of their seven children, Carlo was born November 25i 1793) and died in Rome August 29, 1879; Anna Maria, born May 25, 1798, died August 27, 1870 ; Caterina, born November 4, 1800, died )une: 13, 1867; GiovAN Battista, born October 20. 1802 ; Giuseppe, born Febru ary 15, 1807; GioACCHiNO, born March 2, 1810; Ferdinando, born Janu ary 7, 1816, died at college in his fourteenth year. ANCESTRY OF LEO XIII. THE PECCI FAMILY. 41 But who are these Pecci in whose fortunes we desire to interest our readers ? The Pecci are of a noble Siennese stock. Since the accession to the Pontifical Chair of Leo XIII. travellers in the ancient and most interesting medijeval city are shown the Pecci Palace, adjoining the Cathedral Square, and in the cathedral itself the tombs of some high dignitaries of that name are pointed out. When the evil days preceding the reign of Duke Cosimo I. dei Medici had involved heroic Siena in a deadly but unequal struggle with her old rival and enemy, Florence — or, rather, with the Medici family, which had destroyed the liberties of the latter, and was bent on forcing the republican Siennese to bend their necks to the yoke — it so happened that the Pecci had taken sides against their countrymen.* Under the Pontificate of Cle ment VII. (1523-34), therefore, a branch of the Pecci, fa vored by that Pope, migrated into the States of the Church and settled at Carpineto. No one who has read the thrilling history of the siege of Siena by the Floren tines under the Marquis of Melegnano — Giovanni dei Me dici — but will easily understand how fierce and indomitable a spirit animated the Siennese women as well as men against their ancient foe, Florence, and how hard they were likely to make the lot of such of their own as had made common cause with the enemy. THE PECCI OF CARPINETO. In their new home at Carpineto the Pecci were not altogether safe from the warlike bands which in swift suc- *The MS. in our hands thus relates this incident; " Un ramo della nobile famiglia Pecci di Siena, secondo un' antica tradizione domestica, sotto il Pontificalo di Clemente VII., si trasferi in Carpineto, costretto ad esulare dalle fazioni di quella repubblica e rifugiarsi negli Stati della Chiesa col favore di Papa Clemente VII. della famiglia dei Medici, per la quale, come e fama, avev.ino parteggiato i Pecci." A note in the corrected MS. says: "Esiste sul proposito una memoria scritta dal Conte Ceccopieii di Modena." 42 LIFE OF LEO XIII. cession desolated Italy in the fifteenth century, allowing the land no rest, the scourge of the plague ever following fast the scourge of the sword. Still, apparently at least, the comparative quiet of their mountain solitude weaned their minds from martial pursuits and ambition and turned them to the old peaceful, intellectual avocations and cul ture so dear to the proudest Italian aristocracy of the Catholic ages. Letters and the law never seemed to the proudest nobles of the Italian republics a profession less honorable than that of arms. The professor's chair in any one of the great mediaeval universities conferred, in public estimation, a higher degree of nobility than that of birth ; and distinction in literature and science made its professors the companions and equals of princes and sovereigns. Therefore it is that we find among the Pecci of Carpi neto several who made themselves a name in the learned professions. Ferdinand Pecci was a renowned lawyer in the Pontificate of Benedict XIV. (1740-58) ; John Baptist Pecci, Vicar-General of Anagni, was appointed Bishop of Segni, but death prevented his taking possession of his see ; and a Monsignor Joseph Pecci had so great a repu tation in the Roman law-courts that Pius VI. entrusted to him the law-business of the Braschi family, then in volved in a multitude of suits. He held a still higher place under Pius VIL, who made him Commissary-General of the Apostolic Chamber, a position to which was attached much power and influence. Count Domenico Lodovico Pecci — or Count Lodovico, as he was simply styled— to whom we have introduced the reader, had apparently embraced a military career, or was forced into it by Napoleon I., who needed all the soldiers he could get, and drew largely from the Italian populations to recruit his armies. Count Lodovico had married Anna Prosperi-Buzi, the daughter of a noble house of the ancient Volscian city of Cora— the modern Cori— situated on the western crest of the same Monti Lepini, and not very far distant from Carpineto. The Prosperi-Buzi held in the ancient Volscian stronghold and its district the same place BIRTH OF LEO XIII. 43 which the Pecci held in their own native town. And the Countess Anna brought to her husband a notable increase of property, which their descendants hold tu this day in and around the old cyclopean walls made so famous in Ro man histor}'. But she brought to him and to her children a still richer inheritance of Christian virtues and noble womanly quali ties. Her fourth son — destined one day to be Leo XIII. — was born on Alarch 2, 1810. As Carpineto belonged to the diocese of Anagni,* whose bishop, Joachim Fosi, was a warm friend of the Pecci family, this prelate was in vited to baptize the little stranger and to fulfil toward him the office of godfather. He bestowed on his godson the names of Joachim Vincent Raphael Louis. The name of Vincent was given him at the special request of the countess, who had a special veneration for the great Do minican missionary, St. Vincent Ferrer, Archbishop of Valencia ; and she never called him by any other name. Indeed, so long as she lived the child and boy was onl)- Icnown by the name of Vincent Pecci. But when that worshipped mother was taken from him, and especially since 1830, he assumed and retained exclusively the name of Joachim. Was this to show still more his reverence for the memory of this admirable woman? Joachim and Anna are the names given, in the unbroken tradition of the Churches of both the East and the West, to the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ. Her name, those of her parents and relatives, of the persons immediately connected with Him while He was on earth, such as the apostles and disciples, women as well as men, mentioned in the New Testament, and those of the apos tolic men and saintly women who continued Christ's work in the first centuries, honored His faith by their lives, and bore him glorious witness by their death — have ever been especially dear in Christian households. It was thought, in the firm and universal belief of the real though invisible * The native place of Boniface VIII. A A LIFE OF LEO XIII. communion between the spiritual world of the blessed in heaven and their brethren still struggling on earth, that the bestowing of these dear and honored names on children in baptism secured them special protectors in heaven, and was to them a powerful motive, when grown to manhood and womanhood, to honor by Christian lives the sainted names they bore. So Joseph, Joachim, Anna, Mary, and all those sweet names so familiar in Catholic countries, are only flowers of Eastern birth, transplanted into the home-gardens of European peoples and shedding their sweet fragrance there of the five sons, one, and he the youngest, died in his fourteenth year and while pursuing his studies in Rome. So that within the tapestried walls of the Pecci Palace in Carpineto, as well as on the greensward and beneath the chestnut groves of their country residence outside of the town, the fond and pious mother saw herself surrounded by a joyous circle of seven doting and happy children. And both she and her husband were such parents as could and would make home a paradise for their dear ones, a, sanctuary of peace, piety, hospitality, and charity in the eyes of servants and dependants, of relatives and friends,, and of the suffering and the needy far and near. She must have been not only a lovely and loving wife and mother, but a noble and worshipped Christian woman, this Countess Anna Pecci, whose portrait, taken in the first years of her motherhood, still hangs in the great hall of her palace at Carpineto by the side of her handsome young hus band. For the writer of these pages it was extremely touching to hear her third son, the venerable Cardinal Pecci of to day, recount, with a voice not unshaken by emotion, the qualities of the parent taken from her children all too soon, " She was, in truth, most devoted to the poor," he said. "She was always working for them. In seasons of great distress she had daily supplies of bread baked for them. You know how fond our peasants are of polenta, or rich,. nourishing soup. She directed in person and watched the TIIE MOTHER OF LEO XIIL 45 servants while preparing and cooking huge caldrons of this species of pottage. This, as well as the bread, was dealt out under her superintendence to all who needed it. And she took especial care that the sick poor who could not leave their homes should have their supply sent to them ; and that the bashful poor who could not bear to have their dis tress known should receive assistance in such a delicate way as to prevent their being abased thereby in their own eyes. " She was the soul of every good work of piety and beneficence that was set afoot in the town. Indeed, she started many of them herself. But all this active outside charity never made her neglect her home-duties. She lav ished on us all a mother's most devoted tenderness." Both the count and countess were most earnest Chris tians. This union of minds and hearts in the knowledge and practice of the holiest and most ennobling duties, this one common hope of the Christian's exceeding great reward, was, in their home as in their life, the light which bright ened and warmed everything around them, and filled with j'oy and bliss the hearts of their children.* We may well believe that the law of home-life, so well proved by experience, held good in the palace of the Pecci, as elsewhere and at all times : that the generous encourage ment and co-operation of the husband enable the wife to attempt, and almost to accomplish, impossibilities. * In the Church of the Stigmata, where this good woman reposes in death, there is a plain marble slab on the floor, which records her wortli : " Anna Alex. F. Prosperia, egenorum altrix, filiorum amantissiraa, dorao Cora, Feraina veteris sanctitatis, frugi raunifica, H.S.E. Quae oranis raa- tris familise munere nitide et in exemplum perfuncta, decessit cum luctu bonorum Non. Aug. An. M.DCCC.XXIV. — Vixit dulciss. cum suis An. LI. M.VII. D.XI. Ludovicus Peccius conjux cum liberis racerenti- bus. Mulieri rarissimae incomparabili M. P. Ave. Anima Candidissima Te in pace." CHAPTER III. DARKNESS AND STORM, AMID WHICH JOACHI.M VINCENT PECCI IS BORN AND REARED. BO passed, under the loving and watchful eye of the Countess Anna Pecci, the infancy and childhood of her two oldest sons, amid the serene atmosphere of these lofty Volscian hills, while Pius VII. was cruelly hurried, in the last stage, seemingly, of a mortal illness, from one pri son to another; while the towering pride of the French emperor, bent on making the Church of Christ an instru ment of universal domination and the captive Pope a docile tool of his state policy, shut up his venerable prisoner from all communication with the outside world, and by extreme and unmanly violence, as well as by every art of persuasion and deception, endeavored to extract from him concessions fatal to religion. From the heights around Carpineto both the countess and her husband could listen to the echoes of the mad and unholy wars kindled by the Napoleonic ambi tion rolling from the Straits of Gibraltar to the shores of the Baltic, and hear of his armies driven back in disastrous rout from the gates of Madrid, Moscow, and Leipsic to those of Paris, while the unquiet spirit of the foiled con queror and pitiless tyrant broke forth from its prison in the Island of Elba to raise a fresh whirlwind of flame and blood in France ; only, however, to be vanquished anew at Water loo, and sent to fret and pine away amid the torrid rocks of St. Helena. Then came the return of the care-worn and gentle Pius to Italy and that Rome where all the evil spirits that Vol taire and the Revolution had called up from the pit and let loose in France had been allowed to reign from 1797 till 1 8 14. Nor did the restoration of the Pope to his capi- 46 DARKNESS AND STORM. 47 tai, or of the other Italian princes to their States, put a sudden stop to the propaganda of evil so long carried on in the Peninsula with consummate skill and untiring energy. What power save the creative power of nature, or rather of nature's God, can restore in a great country, in an entire continent utterly devastated by flame and convulsed by earthquakes, the beauty, the life, the order, the divine har mony of all things destroyed by the blind rage of the ele mental forces? What husbandman, though never so skil ful and so untiring, can weed out from his field in a day, a month, a single season, the tares which his enemy has sown during the night over the seed-grain cast into the furrows ? Besides, the deeper and richer the soil the more rapid is the growth of the noxious weed, and the more dif ficult the task of ridding the land of its presence. So is it with man's moral nature. The more privileged a people is in all the rarest gifts of intellect and heart, the more lavish toward them has been the bounty of Providence in the supernatural order, the deeper will be the perversion effected by an anti-Christian propaganda. What ruin, what desolation is comparable to the sowing of the minds of an entire nation with errors, prejudices, passions, which, taking deep root, prevent the possibility of cultivating or planting therein the most necessary and salutary religious notions? Such had been the process carried on among all classes of the Italian population ever since the days of Voltaire. His works, in the native French, in excellent translations, and in popular editions, had been sedulously circulated from one end of the Peninsula to the other. As in France, so in Italy, scepticism had first tainted the upper classes, and from them and by them the intellectual pestilence had been spread downwards through the ambitious mid dle classes, reaching at length the laboring population in city and country. And so, when the Revolution of 1789 first startled Europe by its utterances and innovations, every one of its doctrines found a wide echo in Italy, and too willing apostles among the titled and the learned The House in which Leo Xiii. was Born at Carpineto. 4S ITALY UNDER THE REVOLUTION. 4^ devoted all their energ\- and influence to the work of popu larizing it. When Voltaireanism and Illuminism had be come incarnate in the Revolution of 1793, and sent their armies into Italy a few \-ears later, there were found, unhappily, but too many influential Italians to hail their advent as the hosts of the new Liberty which denied God and declared war on the existing order of things. Napoleon's inconsistent and spasmodic efforts to restore the altars which his soldiers had polluted and torn down, and to use, in forwarding his own schemes of domination, the mighty moral forces of religion, were productive, in Italy, of more harm than good. From one end of the Peninsula to the other, he, his officers, his soldiers, his co-operators and abettors of every degree and occupa tion, had for a quarter of a century taught a religious people to despise, to hate, to ridicule, to outrage religion and its ministers ; taught Catholics to look upon the august Head of the Church as a usurper in the politi cal order, as an anomaly and an anachronism in the new social order inaugurated by the Revolution. The revenues derived from the Pontifical States — a peaceful principality created and guaranteed by Christendom to the Common Father — -were seized. They had ever been devoted to the fostering in Rome and throughout Italy of the Religious Orders and other institutions — the well-springs of educa tion, piety, and the apostolic spirit at home, the nurser ies of the missionaries who spread the name of Christ and the blessings of true civilization among the heathen peoples of both hemispheres. All Church property, all establishments of education and beneficence, the houses and revenues of the Religious Orders especially, were seized by the Revolutionary armies. The confiscations, the plunder, the destruction, the violation of the most sacred rights, and the disorder thereby caused in the popular mind and heart, in the most deep-seated notions, beliefs, and customs, constituted a condition of things so chaotic that no length of time, no labor of restoration, no efforts of the discredited ministers of religion to build 50 LIFE OF LEO XIII. up anew the material temple or to win back the confi dence of the alienated populations, have achieved anything like a real success, even down to our day. And when the wave of French invasion had retired beyond the Alps, all the germs of evil deposited in the soil of Italy sprang up and brought forth the harvest that we know of. We know, too, how well the second gene ration of revolutionists have applied their wide-spread or ganizations to the cultivating in the souls of the people,, with a scientific and fatal certainty, of all this growth of evil principles. Pius VII. returned to Rome on May 24, 1814, to find before him, in the political, social, moral, and material ruia wrought by the French occupation, and the action of all the anti-Christian forces which had so long reigned su preme in Italy, a state of things which might well fill the youngest, the strongest, the bravest with dismay and discouragement. Such was the social and religious condition of their beautiful native land amid which Lodovico and Anna Pecci saw their little family increase and grow up around them. How were they to preserve them from the irreli gious indifference, the contempt, the hatred of all things holy, the habit of deriding the past, the false notions about liberty, the seductive theories about philanthropy and equality, which were floating for ever in the atmos-' phere, and carried on the wings of the wind like germs of intellectual and moral distempers more fatal than the cholera of 1832 or the Black Plague of 1347? Where should they find for their sons, bright and quick,. and eager to learn as these were, masters they could trust,. schools without danger to piety and morality? Count Pecci and his wife, though tenderly attached to their boys, and knowing how much their home and their brothers and sisters would miss them, felt that Carpineto, on its mountain-crest, was not the place in which to find a school fitted to prepare young men for public life. Rome was near at hand ; and in Rome the Popes had ever been BONAPARTE AND THE PAPACY. 51 solicitous to create and maintain the most efficient estab lishments of Christian education. Indeed, the worst ene mies of the Papacy, who do not wilfully shut their eyes to the evidence of historical truth, are wont to confess that the Popes have been as much the generous foster-parents Ol letters and science as they have, confessedly, been the most liberal patrons of the fine arts. But the passage of the Revolutionary armies through Rome and Italy had been as destructive to all educational institutions, to all serious intellectual culture, to the monu ments with which Christian art had covered Italy, and to the beautiful creations of Christian genius, as had been the invasions of Attila and Genseric. What the blind and impious rage of Bonaparte's Sans-Culottes did not destroy or mutilate was carried away beyond the Alps. Paris, not Rome, was intended to be the centre of civilization as of dominion, and the parent of all culture in the new era which had dawned with the year 1793. But that culture and civilization were founded on principles in every way antagonistic to those which had formed and constituted Christendom. Even when General Bonaparte became con sul and then emperor, his blundering and inconsistent ef forts to reorganize in Italy a system of national education in harmony with the new Revolutionary creed, as well as with his own notions of Christianity, only resulted, as they did in France, in paganizing the spirit and teaching of public schools of every grade. His war on the Papacy, his usurpation of the States of the Church and of the government of Rome, naturally led him, and those who carried out his will in the patrimony of St. Peter, to infuse into educational establishments of all kinds an anti-papal, an anti-Catholic, and, without his in tending it directly, an anti-Christian spirit and tendency which Pius VII. and his successors have consistently com bated, without being able effectually to exorcise it from the land. The first great triumph of irreligion, in the last half of the eighteenth century, was to obtain, through the tyran- 52 LIFE OF LEO XIII. nic influence of the united Bourbon sovereigns, the sup pression of the Jesuits — the great teaching body in the Church — and to substitute for their numerous colleges in all Latin countries a thoroughly organized system of na tional non-religious education, as in Spain and Portugal, where the anti-Christian philosophers had it all their own way, on the " Philosophic " or Voltairean methods which prevailed in France till Napoleon created his National Uni versity—the most potent engine, next to the secret socie ties, ever devised by Csesarism to take the youth of a na tion out of the hands of Christian parents and the control of the Church. The first care of Pius VIL, restored to his people, had been to devise adequate means to counteract the effects of this evil teaching, as well as the seductive and demoraliz ing influence of so many years of horrible scandals, licen tiousness, and blasphemy. He restored, by a solemn bull, the Society of Jesus, sup pressed by Clement XIV. by an act wrung from him by the threats and obsession of the Bourbon sovereigns, and which the Pontiff believed to be necessary to save the Church from the gravest dangers. To the Jesuits, tried in the furnace by such long suffer ing as the innocent alone can bear in silence, and purified by the fires of calumny, by imprisonment, exile, poverty, and starvation, Count and Countess Pecci resolved to en trust their boys. Joseph and Joachim (or Vincent, as the latter continued to be called till some years after his mother's death) were then respectively in their tenth and eighth years. It was hard, at so tender an age, to leave the warmth and shelter of their mother's wing, the comforts and freedom of their blessed mountain-home. The wise parents began, in the autumn of 1817, by taking their sons with them to Rome, and, after some days spent in making them see and admire what was most attractive in the Eternal City, they were left for some months in the family of their Uncle Antonio. Meanwhile the Jesuits had opened a college at Viterbo, EARLY EDUCATION OF VINCENT PECCI. 53 which was soon filled with the sons of the best families of Rome and all Italy. Thither, in the autumn of 1818, Joseph and Joachim Vincent Pecci were sent to begin their long and careful education for public life. Whatever opinions may be entertained or expressed about the merits or disadvantages of schools in which chil dren of either sex are reared away from their parents and deprived of a mother's loving care, of the examples and the safeguards of a Christian home, certain it is that these Jesuits of Viterbo, more than one of whom had travelled all the way to Russia to join there the noble band of exiles protected by the czar, were intent on giving to the youth confided to them the benefit of a truly homelike Christian education. They had toiled much, travelled much, sac rificed much, and endured manifold sufferings to gather among the snows and wilds of the Muscovite Empire the fruits of the ripest knowledge and the ripest virtue. They yearned to impart to the children of their native land what they had themselves acquired at such a cost — an eqL(ally ardent thirst for knowledge and for moral goodness. Such were the masters into whose hands Joseph and Vincent Pecci fell at Viterbo. , As our chief concern is with the latter, it is interesting to gather from authentic records how it fared with him during the six years he remained at Viterbo (18 18-1824). The tender and enlightened piety to which his admirable mother had formed him was — as became the most beauti ful flower in the human soul — still further cultivated and perfected by men who prized moral excellence above all the treasures of mere knowledge. But while guarding and forming the heart, they also formed and developed the boy's mind. They filled him with a love for the ancient language of his native Latium, and for the classic literature come down to us from the Augustan age, which nothing could satisfy but the utmost perfection and the closest re semblance in composition and diction to the prose-writers, the orators and poets of Rome. Ever since the school-boy of Viterbo has become the teacher of the Christian world. Church of St. Leo, Carpineto, Attended by His Holiness when a boy. 54 A MODEL STUDENT. 55 European and American scholars have been able to admire and praise the classic taste and exquisite finish of the pro ductions of his pen, in prose and in verse. He gave early promise of uncommon literary distinc tion. Just as he had completed his twelfth year a college festival was got up to welcome the Provincial of the Jesuits, Father Vincent Pavani. This gave to Vincent Pecci the first recorded opportunity of showing his proficiency in Latin verse, as well as his admiration for the character of the venerable man who honored the name oi Vincent.* His masters, at the same time, bore unanimous testi mony to the boy's tender piety and spotless purity of soul. A very serious sickness which he had during the college sessions of 1821 impaired not a little the robust health nourished in the bracing air of his native Volscian hills. But while his gentleness and patience under suffering won the hearts of the rector and professors, their devoted care of him made a deep impression on the little sufferer. The vacations spent at Carpineto beneath his mother's eye, and the thousand soothing and strengthening influences of ma ternal love, restored the invalid to health, but h.e never afterward enjoyed the physical vigor of his early boyhood. This was, indeed, the sweetest season of life for Vincent Pecci and his brother. The countess lived most of her time in Rome, so as to be nearer to her sons while indulg ing her own pious tastes. Her frequent letters to them continued to foster in their souls the home-virtues she had planted there. She delighted in their progress, and took comfort from the frequent accounts received from the col lege of their good conduct and proficiency. Thus did she endeavor to find some compensation for the sacrifice made in sending them away from home at an age when boys most * In our MS. is the following Latin epigram composed by Vincent Pecci for the Provincial : '* Nomine Vincenti, quo tu, Pavane, vocaris, Parvulus atque infans Peccius ipse vocor. Quas es virtutes magnas, Pavane, secutas. Oh ! utinam possem Peccius ipse sequi [ " 56 LIFE OF LEO XIII. need a mother's eye and hand and heart, and Avhen boys can be to a mother a source of unspeakable joy. To be sure the sons and daughters who remained at Carpineto were, with the exception of Ferdinando, the youngest, a great comfort to the countess. Her daughters were now her companions, associated with her in all her good works and charities. But the anxious, motherly heart would busy itself principally about the two boys far away in Viterbo. She had now no fears about their moral con duct ; they were both most exemplary, and the piety of both was solidly grounded in a thorough knowledge of the truths and duties of religion, superadded to the principles instilled into their minds by their mother's early culture. One feature in her training of them at Carpineto was the deep reverence which her example taught them for the much-persecuted Franciscan monks of the neighbor ing monastery. These belonged' to the strictly reformed branch of the great family of St. Francis, whom St. Bernar- dine of Siena, St. Peter Alcantara, St. John Capistrano, St. Leonard of Port Maurice, and so many other divine men taught to walk firmly and fervently in the arduous path of poverty and self-sacrifice trodden by the pierced and bleed ing feet of St. Francis himself. The Franciscan monastery at Carpineto did not escape the vandalism of the first French invasion in 1797-98. The officers and soldiery of the Revolutionary armies everywhere displayed a peculiar animosity against the houses and brethren of that Order. The old Roman nobility were treated little better than the monks and priests ; so the Aldobrandini were power less to prevent the acts of spoliation and cruelty exercised toward the inmates of an establishment they were bound to protect. When Pius VII. was restored, and the religious communities suppressed and dispersed by Napoleon were allowed to return to their former homes, they had a hard struggle to face. Even when allowed to take possession of their monasteries — which was far from always being the case — they found their revenues confiscated. They had to depend on the charity of the surrounding impoverished COUNTESS PECCI AXD THE THIRD ORDER. 57 populations for their daily bread ; they had not unfre quently to look to the generosity of old friends to build up anew and to render habitable the religious homes pulled down or wantonly wrecked by their temporary masters. The Countess Pecci and her husband were not backward in giving a helping hand to the brown-coated and bare footed Observantines. The people of the mountainous districts of Italy have always cherished a warm and grateful affection for these sons of St. Francis, who were to them not only models of the most sublime Christian virtue, but benefactors, supporters, comforters in seasons of distress and illness. The monastery always shared with the needy poor the bread its brethren had begged in the neighbor hood ; there was always' a dispensary where the sick got gratuitous advice, medicine, and care ; and the brother- physician or surgeon, or dispensarian, visited the bed-rid den in their cottages, and brought with them ever balm and healing for the spirit, even when their drugs or simples availed not to restore health to the body. And the Third Order of St. Francis, embracing men and women of every rank and profession living in the world, communicated to its members the most precious spiritual advantages of brotherhood with the Order, on condition of leading, in each one's respective sphere of duty, a life in conformity with the precepts of the Gospel, a life of ever-helpful charity to the neighbor for the dear love of the Father of all. This formed a close bond of union between every home in the district, whether that of the prince or of the peasant, and the Franciscan monas tery.* *The Third Order of St. Francis, which spread so rapidly over all Europe and embraced persons of both sexes and of every rank and condi tion, counted within the lifetime of St. Francis upwards of 500,000 mem bers living in the world, only in a most exemplary manner. In our times many pious Catholic men and women join it, because it is especially in tended for them. The rule does not bind them to take a vow of poverty ; it only enjoins the practice of works of charity, daily prayer, a regular performance of church duties, confession and communion, and, in their daily lives, bids them to refrain from excess or indulgence in the pomps. eg LIFE OF LEO XIII. The Countess Anna was a member of the Third Order, and her example inspired all others to join it, and thereby to pledge themselves to a faithful observance of all the duties of Christian manhood and womanhood. She was most punctual in her attendance at the meetings held in the monastery chapel for purposes of devotion or charity. And she loved to bring her children with her. Thus did the little Vincent become from his earHest years familiar with the brown habit and sandalled feet of the sons of St. Francis of Assisi. From his mother's lips he heard the story of the gentle saint's wonderful and beneficent life, told in the simple way in which true mothers can tell such stories of Godlike virtue and generosity. And the outlines of that life remained imprinted on the bright child's mem ory, till in after-years he could fill in every detail from his own careful studies. At any rate, the example of both his parents, the ardent and active piety of his mother, and, later on, of his two sisters, but in particular his familiar acquaintance with the humble, .self-denying Observantines, the air of poverty and purity which reigned in their church, that " beauty of holiness " which encircled like a halo the men and the place, stamped on the boy's soul such impres sions of living faith and piety as nothing ever afterward could weaken. The year 1823 passed away at Viterbo with the same uniformity of application and uncommon literary success for Vincent Pecci. He was already in the higher Humani ties courses, in which he was introduced to all the chief masterpieces of composition in his own native Italian, as well as in the classic Latin and Greek. He revelled in these studies, for which he seemed to have an uncommon and vanities of the world. It is a holy conspiracy or brotherhood, in which the members help each other by word and example to live up, in the ordinary walks of life, to the precepts and spirit of the Gospel ; the great and the rich restraining theraselves frora a wrong use of their wealth, and using it generously to help the needy and to encourage the industry of the laboring poor. It was the Christian communism revived by St. Francis in the thir teenth century, and which we shall see Leo XIII. endeavoring to restore. DEATH OF THE COUNTESS PECCI. 59 -aptitude. His masters — the very best classic scholars whom the Societ)- of Jesus had in the Peninsula — knowing what precious material they had in Vincent Pecci, took especial pains to form and perfect his taste. He only needed guidance and moderation. A disposition like his required no artificial stimulus to make him keep up with the most advanced or outstrip them.* The vacations of 1823 were again spent on the sunny heights of Carpineto, the boys and their brothers taking long draughts of the bliss of home-life by the side of such a mother as Anna Pecci was. They were now, respective ly, Joseph in his seventeenth year and Vincent in his four teenth. It was for them the very springtide of existence, the blossoming of the soul into all the beautiful promise of a future carefully prepared for both by the culture of their parents and by the conscientious labor of the masters they had chosen for their sons. From the healthy amusements and recreations of Car pineto the proud mother sent them once more back to Viterbo. She was never again to gather them round her in that home which she had made to them a paradise. A fatal sickness had seized upon her, and her husband, at the first serious symptoms of danger, decided that they should go to Rome, so as to be within reach of the best medical skill. But the ripest medical science in Rome could not arrest the progress of the disease. In the prime of life the adored wife and mother felt that she must leave husband and children when she was most needed by them. * In the United States very many among both clergy and laity will remember some of Vincent Pecci's schoolmates at Viterbo, and later at the Roraan College. The venerable Fnther Tellier, S.J., who died not many years ago in Montreal, Superior-General of the Mission in Canada, was, by his exquisite taste and the finished literary excellence of all his compositions, a not unworthy rival of hira who was destined to produce the Encyclical Immortale Dei Another classmate was the V. Rev. Wm. S. Murphy, whose memory still lives in New York, New Orleans, and St. Louis. A third was the Rev. Paul Mignard, S.J., of St. Xavier's, New York. These men never ceased praising the enthusiastic love of study -wilh which such masters inspired thera. 6o LIFE OF LEO XIII. It was then that her deep faith and enlightened piety stood her in good stead. She had too long studied to make her own will conform in all things with the Divine not to ac cept the sentence of her physicians with perfect submission. She had all her life sought too earnestly spiritual strength and comfort in their true source not to find them in abun dance in her supreme need. Her sons were sent for, and. hastened to the bedside of their dying parent. What both Joseph and Vincent there saw and heard made on such minds as theirs indelible impressions, and gave to their .. course in life a direction which they, perhaps, did not then appreciate. The mother's heart yearned for her little Ferdinand, then in his eighth year. But he would. soon follow her. Her last looks rested on the circle of her loved ones' faces. She died, as die all who live for home and duty, for God and neighbor, blessed of God and men. Her body was arrayed in the brown habit and cord of the Francis can Tertiaries, and by them taken to the Observantine Church of the Forty Martyrs (SS. Quaranta Martirt), where she was buried amid the tears and prayers of her family, of the poor of Rome, who had learned to love her. Her hus band and children were inconsolable ; the three youngest were old enough to estimate the greatness of their irre parable loss. To Vincent, whose life we are especially- busied with, this church and its treasure have never ceased to be a thing most sacred and most dear. We shall, in a future chapter, relate the special care bestowed by him on this sanctuary, which is the birthplace and the centre of activity of one of the most admirable Confraternities of Rome dedicated to works of enlightened charity. The affectionate heart of the thoughtful and gentle- youth yearned long for her who had left her own image on his features, his heart, and his life. People have re lated to us in Rome touching anecdotes of the tenderness. with which, in his now venerable old age and exalted posi tion, he paints to children presented to him the unspeak able privilege of possessing a mother's love and care, and 62 LIFE OF LEO XIIL insists on the fulfilment of the sacred duties of filial piety.. His voice then assumes an accent of special tenderness, and his delicate, transparent features are overspread with a special light. Even as we write this our soul is still moved after seeing the Pope, in his seventy-seventh year, surrounded in early morning by families — parents and children from different lands far asunder — kneeling around him, while that great, fatherly heart of his went out in looks and words of love to those who are truly every one his own,. confided to him by Christ. It is an education in itself to follow the progress of such a beautiful life. CHAPTER IV. JOACHIM VINCENT PECCI FORMS THE ACQUAINTANCE OF LEO XIL— 1825. Vvj I 'HILE the Countess Pecci, in the last days of her VScA> life, was made happy by what she knew herself and heard from others of the love of her sons for all that should excite the noblest ambition of youth, the saintly, meek, and much-tried spirit of Pius VII. passed to its everlasting rest. In his place was elected Cardinal Anni- bale della Genga, who took the name of Leo XIL, and who set himself, from the very beginning of his reign, to com plete the work of reconstruction inaugurated by his prede cessor. The new Pontiff had a perfect consciousness of the spirit and tendencies of the nineteenth century, of the dis order fallen upon the States of the Church during the long, sad years which closed with the life of his predecessor, and of the manifold and urgent needs in the Church itself, which claimed all the zeal of a saint and the authorita tive energy of the Supreme Pastor. Leo XII. displayed both the one and the other during his all too brief Pontificate. Feeling that the enemies of religion and society were using education as a mighty and most effective force to dechristianize Europe and the world, Leo applied himself to collect around him in Rome the most accomplished educators. Italy, he thought, ought, by the superior culture and the superior virtues of its inhabitants, to set the example to the rest of the civil ized world. Rome, being the centre of Catholicity, the seat of the great teaching and governing authority in the Church, should be like an unfailing light set on high and 63 64 LIFE OF LEO XIII. shedding its radiance abroad through the whole earth, like the fountain-head and source of the waters of life for all humanity, ever gushing and ever pure. In Rome, grouped around the Shrine of the Holy Apostles, were the great nurseries of the apostolic and missionary spirit, to which all heathen lands looked for the men who were to evangel ize them. There were the splendid seminaries of learning, in which the twin lamps of sacred and secular knowledge had been ever fed by the Sovereign Pontiffs from out the revenues of their narrow principality. There resided the various and admirable administrative bodies who were the Pope's efficient instruments in governing the Church Uni versal. Papal Rome and the Papal States had thus the honor of being, in the designs of that Providence whose course the Christian historian marks all through the events of the last two thousand years, the country and the people set apart by Him to help Him in making Christians of all the tribes of earth, and in binding all men in the sweet chains of one common brotherhood. The glorious and exceptional prero gative bestowed of old on Palestine and its chosen people was transferred, in the Christian Dispensation, to Italy and the Roman State ; they were to be the great agency, un der God, for Christianizing, civilizing, and uniting the en tire human family. Napoleon's genius clearly perceived this truth, and his blind ambition impelled him to endeavor to transfer from Rome to Paris, with the seat of the Sovereign Pontificate, that of this unique and universal moral power, more far- reaching than his imperial sway. But God, who will move the foundations of the earth in order to give freedom to His Church, independence to His Vicar, caused the Napo leonic Empire suddenly to fall and vanish like a splendid dream, and Pius VIL returned to his people. So must it befall, sooner or later, any earthly power which attempts to incorporate with its dominions the principality created by Providence and the accord of Christian nations to secure to the Papacy not only per- VINCENT PECCI A T THE fiOMAN COLLEGE. 65 feet freedom in the discharge of its divinely appointed office, but the indispensable means for fulfilling it. Leo XIL, who had borne his part in the sufferings and sorrows of the seventh Pius, threw his whole energy into reorganizing perfectly every part of the vast administra tion of the ecclesiastical government, and restoring perfect order, discipline, and observance in the great monastic bodies, and in creating schools of every grade, such as were needed by Christian Rome in presence of new circum stances, new ideas, and the new and irresistible tendencies of the age. The College of Viterbo was too far away from Rome, where it was the wise policy of the Popes to open great central schools accessible not only to the young students of the great Religious Orders, but to those of the various national colleges sent to the Eternal City to learn the sacred sciences within the shadow of the Vatican, and to all the Roman youth of every class, whose education was the special care of the bishop and clergy of Rome. Leo XIL, in the year 1824, restored the famous Col- legio Romano to the Jesuits. Few indeed as were the men who had survived the long period of dispersion, exile, poverty, and proscription consequent upon the suppression of the Society by the Bourbons, their spirit had passed into the noble band nursed among the snows of Russia ; and the young men who flocked to the Jesuit novitiates after the restoration of the Society allowed themselves to be moulded to the same heroic generosity and lofty intel lectual ideas which had characterized, in their long and cruel trial, the dispersed sons of St. Ignatius. When, in the autumn of 1825, the Roman College solemnly inaugurated its courses of ecclesiastical and secu lar teaching, its halls were at once filled by fourteen hun dred students. Among these was Vincent Pecci. His brother Joseph, impressed by his mother's death, and at tracted by the lofty ideals of self-sacrificing virtue and zeal in the divine service followed by his Jesuit masters, had, with his father's consent, cast his lot wjth them. The 55 LIFE OF LEO XIII. younger brother, reserved providentially for even a higher destiny, gave himself up to his ardor for study, his enthu siasm being constantly fed not only by the genius and methods of his masters, but by the emulation they knew so well how to maintain among their pupils of every de gree. The taste for literary excellence developed at Vi terbo by the illustrious Father Lionardo Giribaldi was still further cultivated and matured by such renowned men as Fathers Ferdinando Minini and Joseph Bonvicini. Under them he completed what may be considered the middle collegiate course in the Jesuit systera — Humanities and Rhetoric* That, in these very years, the lad of fourteen was ear nestly endeavoring to grasp the full significance of the political, social, and religious changes occurring on every side, we have an indication in a Latin oration which he was chosen to deliver before the assembled students and faculty at the end of his year of Rhetoric. Vincenzo Pecci (as he continued to be called by his school-fellows) had taken for his subject, " Pagan Rome as compared with Christian Rome," and pointedly referred to the moral and unbloody triumph of the Holy See, in the person of Pius VIL, over the brute-violence of Napoleon's military despot ism. The honor of delivering this oration was due to the fact of the young speaker's having won the prize of excel lence in Latin prose-composition. More remarkable still was his success in Latin verse. The rule for all who contended here for the prize of excel lence was that they should within the space of six hours, and without any external aid whatever, write a certain *The first or lower course in Jesuit colleges, according to .\cqua- viva's "Ratio Studiorum." consists ofthe iufima, media, and suprema Grammatica. or first, second, and third Grammar classes or forms. Then come the two classes of Humanities and Rhetoric, equivalent to the Soplio- more Course in American colleges. To the Undergraduate Course among us corresponds tlieir Philosophy Course, which lasts three years, and cnm- prises, besides Logic, Metaphysics, and Ethics, a course of pure .ind ap plied Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Natural History, Geology, Bio logy, etc. l^lNNINd ACADEMIC HONORS. ^-i number of Latin hexameters on a specified subject. This subject happened to be the Feast of Belshazzar. Young Pecci produced one hundred and twenty verses of such unquestionable excellence that the prize was unanimously awarded to him by the judges. This, howeve'-. was not his only success : to him were also awarded the first hoa ors in Greek. Thus was crowned, while he was yet only at the begin ning of his Undergraduate Course, the uncommon ardol with which young Pecci had given himself up to the cultivation of the classical literatures of Greece and Rome. The fine taste thereby developed only made him more ambitious to acquire a perfect mastery of his own native Italian. We shall have occasion further on to show that his efforts here were rewarded with no less suc cess. The masterpieces of these ancient classic literatures must ever be, so long as civilization lasts, the most per fect models of literary composition, of the most beautiful thoughts clothed in language the most beautiful. To public, professional men of every class, whose great instru ment of action and influence is human speech, oral and written, a perfect mastery over the resources of one's own native tongue is indispensable. And experience has de monstrated that, in our own days as in the past, the men who in Church and state are the leaders of their fellow-men — like a Newman, a Gladstone, a Leo XIII. — are men who have most assiduously and successfully cultivated classic antiquity. These academic honors were won at the end of the college sessions of 1825. The more serious studies and less inviting subjects comprised in the curriculum of phi losophy often prove a source of failure to young men who have distinguished themselves in the pursuit of mere lite rature. But where imagination and intellect are equally balanced and harmoniously- developed, there is no reason why great success in the culture of letters should not be followed by equal success in philosophy and the sciences. 6r8 LIFE OF LEO Xllt. Vincent Pecci proved that his faculties were so happily balanced and cultivated. In the printed list of prizes distributed in the Collegio Romano at the end of the scholar-year 1828 our Pecci's name is mentioned for the first prize in Physics and Chem istry, and for the first accessit for mathematical physics. And, in connection with this creditable fact, it should be mentioned here that among the Faculty of Science in the Roman College at that time were such men as John Baptist Pianciani and Andrea Carafa, scientists of European fame. For a brief space, in 1848-49, the United States possessed, together with the illustrious Pianciani, such of his exiled brother-professors as the astronomers De Vico and Sec- chi. The government of Washington, well aware of the merit of the great scholars whom Mazzini and Garibaldi would not tolerate in Rome, vainly endeavored to se cure their services for the observatory of the Federal capital, while the British government were equally anxious to place under their direction the observatory of Calcut ta. Father de Vico, returning temporarily to London, caught typhus-fever from a poor Irish emigrant to whom he ministered on shipboard, and died a victim to his char ity. Secchi lived to create the science of solar physics; to become, in spite of the disfavor attaching to the name of Jesuit, a foremost authority in the highest walks of science ; and to see, before his death, his brethren driven pitilessly forth from the great University School,* which had so long been one of the glories of Italy, the nur sery of great Popes, great scholars, and great Christian men. The success which rewarded Pecci's application to philosophy and science at the end of 1828 increased all through the next year. His acknowledged superior ity to his fellow-students caused him to be selected, at the close of the curriculum, to defend against all objec tors, and in the most public manner, theses so chosen * The Collegio Romano was also called the Gregorian University, from Gregory XIIL, who erected the present magnificent building. A GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT. 6g from the subject-matter of the three years' teaching that they would in reality embrace the entire field of philo. sophy. This was the highest distinction that could, at that stage of his university career, be conferred upon the young student, then in his twentieth year. Such pub lic disputations on philosophy, canon law, theology, etc., have always been held in high honor in Rome. They were characteristic of the mediaeval universities, and were adopted by the Jesuits in their great schools as one of the most powerful stimulants to the pursuit of excellence in every department of human learning. These solemn academical tournaments, which were fra- quented by the elite of Roman society, and in which the most learned men and the highest dignitaries, even cardinals themselves, entered the lists, were often graced by the presence of the Papal Court. It required both uncommon ability and uncommon nerve in a young man to face such an audience, and to reply, during six en tire hours, to the most formidable and unforeseen objec tions, urged, too, by men thoroughly versed in the dia lectic art. Our young philosopher threw himself into the work of preparation with his habitual ardor — with too much ardor, indeed ; for he had never quite got over the effects of the gastric fever which had brought him to death's door at Viterbo. The mental excitement and fatigue consequent on overwork were soon visible. The family physicians would not hear of his exposing himself to the public or deal that awaited him. His masters, however, who were perfectly aware of his thorough mastery of the subject- matters to be discussed, had to acquiesce reluctantly in the decision of the physicians. Still, they were unwilling that one who, in the judgment of students and faculty, was pre-eminently distinguished for talent and proficiency. should be deprived, by the accident of illness, of all the honor he so well deserved. The Faculty decreed that a solemn attestation of Pecci's worth in connection with the 70 LIFE OF LEO XIII. proposed academical solemnity should be drawn up and given to him.* One of his schoolmates in Viterbo and in Rome wrote in February, 1878, immediately after the election of Leo XIIL: " I can bear witness to the fact that while yet at Viter bo he won our admiration not only by his quick intelli gence, but still more by the singular purity of his life. Dur ing our Humanities course we were rivals, and there each time I .saw him he impressed me as being all life and intel lect. All through his studies in Rome he never sought social gatherings, conversazioni, diversions, or games. His work-table was his world ; it was paradise to him to be plunged in the study of science. From his twelfth and thirteenth years upwards he wrote Latin prose and verse * Here is the document in question, still carefully preserved by the Pecci family : "COLLEGIUM ROMANUM SOCIETATIS JESU. " Fidem facimus prxstantem juvenem Joachinum Vincentium Pecci per triennium in hoc Athenseo Gregoriano philosophise studio vacasse, in eoque adeo profecisse ut judicio Doctorum Decuiialium dignus habitus sit, qui de selectis ex universa Philosophia thesibus, labente anno scholas- tico 1829, publice disputaret. Cum vero id perficere ab infirraa valetu- dine fuerit prohibitus, rem ipsam nostris hisce literis testatum volumus, atque optimse spei adolescentem promerita laude et elogio prosequimur. " Datum in Collegio Romano, 30 Xbri, 1830. " Franciscus Manera, S.J., ' ' Praefectus Studiorum . ' ' " ROMAN COLLEGE OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. " We hereby attest that the distinguished young gentleman, Joachim Vincent Pecci, has studied philosophy in this Gregorian University during three years, and that his proficiency therein was such that, in the judg ment of the Faculty, he was chosen as fit to maintain a public disputation on a selection of theses from the entire philosophical curriculum at the close of the year 1829. But inasmuch as he has been prevented by illness from so doing, we desire to bear witness to the fact itself by this written attestation, and bestow on a youth of such excellent promise the honor and praise he deserves. " Given in the Roman College, October 2,0, 1830. "Francis Manera, S.J., " Prefect of Studies," TIIE JUBILEE OF /,s'_;,-, 7 I ¦.vith a facility and an elegance that were wonderful in one so young." * During his university studies Joachim Pecci resided tvith his uncle Antonio in the Muti Palace. He seems to have been singularly drawn to Pope Leo XIL, whose life closed in 1829, just as Pecci was terminating his philoso phical studies. In 1825 the Holy Father proclaimed a Jubilee for the entire Christian world. The last had been in i8cx), just after Pius VI. had died, exiled and imprisoned, at Valence, in France, and when Pius VIL, elected under the protection of the Russian flag, was be ginning his long martyrdom. Much had been done during these twenty-five eventful years to blot out from the souls of the Latin peoples, with the veneration for the religion of their ancestors, the belief in the divinity of Christ and the very notion of a Godhead. Could Leo XII. stir what had once been a united Christendom by the proclamation of a Jubilee? And would pilgrims from every Christian land be seen to come, at the Pontiff's call, to kneel once more at the shrines of the Apostles? Such questions did grave men ask each other as they surveyed the wide-spread wreck around them and listened to the sneers of the sceptic press, which were only the echo of the old Voltairean ism. Leo XII.'s prophetic soul was deeply moved and com forted by the sight of the throngs of pilgrims, the very elite of Christian countries, who filled Rome and consoled the Vicar of Christ for half a century of persecution, de struction, and blasphemy. He himself gave the example of unaffected piety by visiting the privileged churches of Rome, and joining his own people and the pilgrims of every land in supplicating the divine mercy in the sore need of the Christian world. He also saw to it in person that the preparations he had ordered to be made for the reception of the multitudes of strangers were carried out in the proper spirit. Men who bore a part in these proceed- * Letter written in February, 1878, to Father Ballerini, editor of the Civilta Cattolica, and quoted in the " Cenni Storici," c. i. v 1, y2 LIFE OF LEO XIII. ings have put on record their testimony to the living piety and indefatigable charity of the nobles, clergy, and people of Rome, animated by the person and examples of their saint like Pontiff. These were days which made on the young and pure soul of Joachim Vincent Pecci impressions which shaped the whole of his after-life. The spectacle of Leo XIL, pale, emaciated, brought back from death's door by a miracle, expending all his energy in purifying the house of God and building up the ruins made by revolution and impiety, dying like a saint and desiring to be buried near the altar-tomb of St.. Leo the Great, where he should be under the feet of the multitude, were lessons which the serious-minded and noble-souled son of Countess Anna Pecci was to treasure up for imitation. The boy — for he was only fifteen in 1825 — followed the Pope from church to church, from hospital to hospital, as with naked feet and in penitential garb, amid the chant of penitential psalms and prayers, the Common Father of Christendom taught his people how to turn away the di vine anger from the earth torn by convulsions and swept by pestilence and flame. All Rome imitated the conduct of the Supreme Pastor. Nor were the youth of the Roman schools backward in following in the footsteps of their elders. Together with the students of the Collegio Ro mano, and headed by their respective professors, they imi tated the touching precedent set them by the Holy Father, and made the pilgrimage and the visits to all the seven churches in the most edifying manner. Ending with St. Peter's, these thousands of young men of all nations were then ushered into the Belvidere Court in the Vatican, where Leo XII. appeared on the middle balcony above and blessed them solemnly. Joachim Pecci was unanimously selected, young as he was, to head a deputation of students and to pre sent to the Sovereign Pontiff an address of thanks in Latin. This incident, connecting himself personally with a Pope for whom he entertained so deep a veneration, ON THE HILLS AT CARPINETO. 73 was one of the most cherished memories of his later years. Thus the springs of religious feeling opened by a Chris tian mother in the soul of her child, and so carefully fed as he grew up, gave forth their waters all through youth and manhood. But the memory of that lost mother, so tenderly loved, and the image of her blessed home at Carpineto, haunted Pecci amid the halls of the Gregorian University, his quiet rooms in the Muti Palace, and all the sights of Rome at her busiest and most exciting times. His vacations were always spent among his native hills, the recollections and atmosphere of which never failed to brace up soul and body during the few weeks of occupied repose enjoyed there. An incident connected with the annual vacation spent among his native hills may be given here as quite charac teristic of the student of nineteen. During his fowling and hunting excursions he was fond of resorting to the church of Our Lady of the Annunciation, at some distance from the town, and in which was a painting of the Ma donna held in great veneration. It was his custom to pay the homage of his devotion to the Incarnate God and His Mother, and then to rest himself in the shady portico. Having made inquiries about the sanctuary and the painting, he learned that the latter had been brought to its present site from a little oratory built on the banks of the mountain stream, that the ground for the present church had been given by his own fam ily, and the new edifice itself reared by the piety of the people. He thereupon resolved to place on record the memory of these facts ; selected a monumental stone, fashioned it, and then wrote out the following inscription, which he cut into the slab himself. Scholars can judge of the ripe knowledge of the classic lapidary style already acquired by one so young: 74 LIFE OF LEO XIII. MARI^ SANCTI DEIPAR/E AB AXGELO SALUTAT.^ TEMPLUM HOC QUOD POSITUxM INFERIUS SECUS FONTEM EMINERE OLIM MINUS POTERAT CAIETANUS PASQUALIUS FUNDO A GENTE PECCIA TRIBUTO yEre a Cartinetensibus collato In elatiori et amceniori hacic loco EREXIT AN. D. MDCCLXXVII. TO HOLY MARY THE MOTHER OF GOD, SALUTED BY THE ANGEL, THIS TEMPLE WHICH, PLACED LOWER DOWN NEAR A STREAM, WAS THEN LESS CONSPICUOUS, CAJETAN PASQUALI, THE GROUND BEING GIVEN BY THE PECCI FAMILY And the money made up by the Carpinetians , Here in a loftier and pleasanter place ERECTED A.D. 1777. CHAPTER V. DRAWN TO THE SERVICE OK GOD. IT cannot be wondered at if, taught from his earliest years to revere and love the humble sons of St. Francis of Assisi, Joachim Vincent Pecci should have felt secretly drawn to a life of self-denial and sacrifice. The study of the history of that sweet saint, when he was better able to appreciate the divine poetry with which it is filled, and a knowledge of the labors, at home and abroad, of the great family of saints, missionaries, apos tles, and scholars founded by the seraphic lover of Christ crucified, could not help to increase this attraction toward the service of God. Then the apostolic virtues, the eminent learning, and the still more eminent holiness of life of the first genera tion of restored Jesuits, who were Pecci's admiration at Viterbo and in Rome, together with the never-to-be-for gotten figure of the seventh Pius, surrounded with the halo of suffering and sanctity, and the noble "life of his im mediate successor, Pope Leo, were more than enough to inspire a nature already religiously inclined to embrace a career of devotion to the good of others. He did not feel called to follow his brother, and selected the ranks of the secular priesthood in which to combat and to labor. He therefore was matriculated in 1830 among the theo logical or Divinity students of the Gregorian University, his Alma Mater. Whatever may have been the undisputed excellence of the Jesuits' Faculty of Arts in every depart ment, it is no exaggeration to say that in the sphere of sacred knowledge they surpassed themselves. Their theo logians, in 1830, were a galaxy of accomplished men whose 75 76 LIFE OF LEO XIII. fame belongs to both hemispheres. Among them were Perrone, whose works have ever since been classic in the great Catholic schools of all countries, and Patrizi, whose commentaries on Scripture are esteemed even by Protes tant Biblical scholars. It was, in more than one way, an age of religious reno vation, a sort of intellectual renaissance after a period of revolution and decay. A noble spirit of emulation under Leo XII. and his successors possessed all the great Reli gious Orders in the Church, and was manifested in the bands of learned professors with whom they filled the chairs in the Propaganda, the Sapienza, the Minerva, and the other celebrated schools of Rome. Leo XIL, soon after his accession, in 1824, issued a bull. Quod Divina Sa- pientia, reorganizing Intermediate and University Educa tion throughout the Papal States. A congregation of car dinals was given charge over all these educational establish ments ; and the great University of the Sapienza,* which was, properly speaking, the University of Rome, was reno vated and improved in its faculties, methods, and discipline, so as to be thoroughly on a level with the highest require ments of the times. Joachim Pecci needed no stimulus to urge him to attain in sacred science the degree of excellence reached by him in letters and philosophy. People were then carried onward and upward by the powerful current which had set in, and which was most favorable to all the highest studies. His very first year in the Divinity curriculum was crowned by such a triumphant success as went far to compensate him for his accidental failure of the previous autumn. He was again selected for a solemn public disputation, or "Theolo gical Act," as it was called, embracing select questions from * The University of the Sapienza derives its popular name from the text inscribed over its rear entrance by Sixtus V., who was a Franciscan monk, had filled the chair of Theology in it, and became, when Pope, one of its most generous benefactors. The text is : Initium sapientia timor Domini—" The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord." The words are a bitter comment on the principles which now guide the teaching of the sceptic or anti-Christian professors under Kins UmbcrtQ, P^F.-E.yiNE.NT A.MONC HIS ClAS.SALHFS. 77 all the matters taught.* The University Register merely says that " the young gentleman gave such proof of his talent as to enable one to foresee that he would attain great distinction." But the Annuary, recording the list of premiums and the names of the laureates, goes out of its way to praise his great talent and his no less great industry.f So much, in fact, did he rise above his classmates, and abqve the level of knowledge to which mere learners gene rally attain, that he was appointed to repeat the lectures on philosophy to the pupils of the German College. It was a happy selection for him, as it compelled him to put his scientific lore into more perfect form in order to render it profitable to his hearers. We find also mentioned in our manuscript guide an other fact equally creditable to the Faculty of the Grego rian University and to the subject of this history, and one which should interest all who are concerned in teaching * The fact is thus mentioned in the College Register : "Vincentius Pecci de selectis quaestionibus ex tractatu de Indulgentiis, nee non de Sac ramentis Extremae Unctionis atque Ordinis, in aula collegii maxima, publice disputavit, facta omnibus in frequenti prxsulum aliorumque in- signium virorum corona, post tres designatos, arguendi potestate. In qua disputatione idem adolescens tale ingenii sui specimen prjebuit ut ad alti- ora proludere visus sit " — " Vincent Pecci held a disputation in the great hall of the college on selected questions on Indulgences and the Sacra ments of Extreme Unction and Order. There was a large attendance of prelates and other distinguished men, who were allowed, after the three regular objectors had done, to present their objections. The young dis putant gave such evidence of his ability that one may easily divine to what distinction he is sure to attain " (" Cenni Storici," ibidem, n. 3). f " Inter theologiae academicos, Vincentius Pecci strenue certavit de Indulgentiis in aula maxima, coram doctoribus collegii, aliisque viris doctrina spectatissimis. Quum vero in hac publica exercitatione, acade- mico more peracta, industrius adolescens non parvara ingenii vim et dili- gentiam impendent, placuit ejus nomen honoris causa heic recensere" — "Among the theological students Vincent Pecci well maintained a public disputation in the Great Hall before the college Faculty and other per sons greatly distinguished for learning. Inasmuch as in this public act, carried on according to rule, the laborious candidate displayed great talent and learning, it is deemed well to give him here honorable mention " (ibidem). 78 LIEE OF LEO XIIL how to expose and how to defend the entire system of Revealed Truth. Father Perrone, the eminent professor of theology, and the no less distinguished Father Manera, who was prefect of studies, had established an academy among the theolo gical students for the encouragement of all who wished to acquire more than ordinary skill in expounding the dogmas of Revelation and in defending them against the most for midable objections of science and unbeHef. To give this academy a firm standing in the public opinion of the uni versity two solemn disputations were held in the univer sity hall. Four of the cleverest academicians prepared, each on a given line of argument, the most knotty difficul ties found against the supernatural order by science, ra tionalism, materialism ; against the Catholic Church by Lu therans, Jansenists, Rationalists, or Csesarists. The person chosen on both occasions to expose the doctrines of Reve lation and to detect and refute all possible objections was Pecci. Many of our readers will be familiar with this large freedom of discussion, this thoroughness with which the youth of our great Catholic university schools are trained to the knowledge of theology, and the care taken to fami liarize them with the most formidable weapons used by the adversaries of Christianity, as well as with those employed in defending it by its most successful apologists. Nowhere are truth and error placed side by side and studied in all their bearings with a more conscientious and thorough earnestness than in the Roman schools, and in all those who follow the same well-approved and large- minded methods. But these same readers will have also appreciated how creditable was the part assigned to Vincent Pecci. And, in fact, the credit by him won was all the greater that he never failed to meet his opponents with victorious argu ments couched in language as elegant as it was precise. The time had now come when he was to lay aside the name of Vincent, by which he had been known all through his college and university courses. In 1832 he won and re- IN 'THE COLLEGE OF NOBLI.S. 79 ceived his degree of Doctor in Theology, the highest and most important academical distinction conferred by the Church. Thenceforward he invariably signed his name Gioaccliino, or Joachim. Having determined to cast his lot with the secular priesthood, he found himself, at the end of the year 1832, in the necessity of choosing between a career of parochial duty or the service of the Holy See. With the approval of his father and uncle he resolved on the latter course, and, in consequence, entered the academy or college for noble ecclesiastics, which was the nursery of all who were destined for a diplomatic or administra tive career under the Pontifical government. The stu dents of this establishment pursued in the University of the Sapienza the special courses appropriate to their call ing. There the Sovereign Pontiffs had secured the services of the most eminent jurists for the schools of civil and canon law, the chairs being won by a public concourse.* Pecci, while applying himself diligently to acquire a thorough knowledge of civil and ecclesiastical jurispru dence, profited also by the great facilities offered in the Sapienza to push still further his studies in theology. In deed, he gave in public more than one proof of his uncom mon proficiency therein. He won, in particular, in 1835, a very enviable intellectual triumph, together with a pre mium of sixty sequins ($132) offered for the best essay on one from among a hundred given theses. These were numbered, and the contestants had to draw by lot. The thesis which fell to Pecci was that of " Immediate Appeals to the Roman Pontiff in person." f And so at each stage of his education the young noble man displayed the same conscientious determination to do well whatever he had to do, to master thoroughly, in order the better to serve the Divine Master, whatever branch of sacred or profane science was set before him. Among the * See further information on the University of the Sapienza in Appen dix A. f See Appendix B 8o LIFE OP LEO XIII. young nobles who were his schoolmates in the Ecclesiastical Academy was one to whom he became bound by a life-long friendship— the Duke Sixtus Riario-Sforza, whose saintly life, heroic virtues, self-sacrifice, and unbounded charities have been made known to the whole civilized .world by the pens of non-Catholic writers. Appointed Cardinal Arch bishop of Naples during the troublous days which be held so many political and social changes in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, as well as in the entire Peninsula, Car dinal Riario-Sforza won the veneration of all by showing himself the man of God, the good shepherd ever ready to lay down his life for his stricken flock. Such friendships, springing from identity of disposition in two young souls drawn together, honor both the one and the other. In such holy companionship, and buoyed up by lofty aims, Joachim Pecci labored to make himself worthy of the degree of Doctor in Civil and in Canon Law, which was be stowed on him after the usual examinations. All these successive academical triumphs, achieved un der the eyes of the highest dignitaries and the most learn ed men in Rome, spread the young doctor's fame among all classes of Roman society, and brought him under the favorable notice of the reigning sovereigns themselves. More than one even among the cardinals, attracted to him by his unaffected piety, his modesty and gentle courtesy, and by the solid and general knowledge which was so rare in one of his years, foresaw that he would render great service to the Holy See, and bestowed not a little pains in counselling and directing him. The ven erable Cardinal Sala, in particular, who had been asso ciated with Cardinal Caprara* in the disastrous legation to Paris in 1808, and whose soul had been tried, like that of Pius VII. himself, by the six terrible years that fol lowed, conceived a warm attachment for Pecci. In their in tercourse the young and inexperienced churchman learned, * Cardinal Caprara was no match for Napoleon in the crooked ways of diplomacy. IJOL Y FRIENDSHIPS FORMED. 8 1 from one who had been thrice purified in the furnace, many lessons which were soon to be of priceless service to him self in governing men and dealing with governments. After the death of Leo XIL, in 1829, the College of Car dinals, moved by the same lofty motives which had direct ed their choice in the election of the two last saintly Popes, gave their suffrages to another man of equally splendid virtue and uncommon learning. But Pius VIII. only shed a brief gleam of brightness on Rome and the Chair of Peter ; and then came the stormy reign of Gregory XVL, to be followed by one more stormy still, more disastrous to the liberty of the Sovereign Pontiffs, and protracted be yond all those which had come before it. Pius VIIL, who took in the members of the Ecclesiasti cal Academy the interest which a sovereign and a parent should take in the principal nursery of his future assistants in Church and state, watched the progress of Pecci, and bestow-ed on him more than one mark of his regard. But the illustrious Cardinal Pacca, the friend, counsellor, and fellow-sufferer of the seventh Pius, happened to be the protector of the academy, and took a lively interest in the gentle, pious, refined, and cultivated youth, whom every body loved and praised because of his retiring, modest, and unobtrusive disposition. When Gregory XVI. had succeeded to Pius VIIL, Cardinal Pacca warmly recom mended to him the young Pecci, in whom his experi enced eye had discovered uncommon merit and the pro mise of a great career. Gregory thereupon, in January, 1837, appointed Joachim Pecci one of his Domestic Pre lates. It was a distinction fairly won, not granted to mere nobility of birth, but conferred on the true nobleness of rare virtue united to accomplishments as rare. His preparatory studies were now completed. He was about to begin his twenty-eighth year, the ordinary age for receiving Holy Orders. He therefore left the academy, and went to reside once more with his uncle Antonio in the Muti Palace, near Ara Coeli. On March 16 he was appointed Referendary to the Court of Segnatiira — an appointment ^2 ' LIFE OP LJfO XIII. indicating that the .sovereign and his counsellors had dis covered in the young prelate administrative talent of a high order. This was made still further manifest by his being given soon afterward a place among the prelates of the Congregation di Buongovcrno, specially charged with the financial administration of all the communes of the Papal States. Here he came under the immediate control of his friend Cardinal Sala, who* was president of the Con gregation or Permanent Committee of Government. Meanwhile the terrible Asiatic cholera had invaded Italy and made its way to Rome. Cardinal Sala was appointed by the Pope to superintend all the cholera hospitals in the city. The mortality was fearful, baffling the skill of the physicians and sweeping away persons of all classes. Monsignor Pecci, not being in priest's orders, could not help in ministering to the spiritual needs and comfort of the plague-stricken. But, possessing, as he did, the entire confidence of the cardinal, he became his right- hand man, displaying not only great practical judgment in providing for the urgent wants of so many thousands, but that indefatigable zeal and that fearlessness of personal danger which came as much from his own ardent piety and his love of the poor as from his natural unselfishness and generosity. If, during these awful summer months, Monsignor Pecci had often wished that he, too, could be privileged to minis ter priestly consolation to the dying, his desire was soon to receive a partial fulfilment, at least. He was told to prepare for Holy Orders as soon as, with the cold weather, the plague had subsided. On November 13 of the same memorable year he re ceived sub-deaconship and deaconship at the hands of Car dinal Odescalchi, the Pope's vicar-general, in the little chapel of St. Stanislas Kostka in the gem-like church of " St. Andrew on the Quirinal." It will help the reader to understand the hidden springs of the life we have undertaken to describe if he will pause with us a moment in this, one of the most beautiful sane- yOACHLM PECCI RECEIVES HOL Y ORDERS. S3 tuaries in Rome itself, one of the sweetest and most restful spots for the traveller and pilgrim in this city so crowded with the monuments of pagan civilization and Christian piety. The author has just returned from a visit to this place — already doomed, with all the edifices which line the same side of the street opposite the grand masses of the Quirinal Palace, to disappear within the next twelve months. Let us go back together to the 13th of November, 1837, the anniversary of the death of Stanislas Kostka (about 1580), the boy-saint whom Catholic Poland reveres as its patron and protector in heaven. Here he arrived, foot sore and exhausted, with the seeds of a mortal disease fast spreading in his frame, after his long and perilous journey from his native land. He had left his brother's lordly halls to cast his lot with the brethren of Bellarmine and Aloy- sius Gonzaga, of Francis Xavier and Francis Borgia, and give his life to the work of evangelizing the heathen in A.sia, America, and Africa. But the light of that young life, after blazing out with surpassing splendor in the no vitiate on the Quirinal, went out for ever. The sweet odor of his virtues remained ; the memory of the angelic youth — reminding one of Samuel at the same age, a bright lamp in God's house shedding unearthly radiance on the holy place for a brief time — remained ever after his death, more potent to kindle in the pure souls of the young and the truly noble an ardent love of supernatural excellence than the examples of a long and eloquent career. It was the influence of this holy memory that made all that was best in Rome vie with each other in decorating the modest little church where was buried the gentle Po lish pilgrim, and attracted the ^lite of Roman youth to enlist among the soldiers of the cross, whose battles on both hemispheres .Stanislas Kostka had yearned to fight. It was a kindred feeling that made both Cardinal Carlo Odescalchi and Monsignor Pecci select this retired spot, this quiet little sanctuary, as the place best fitted for the latter to give himself to the service of the altar, like Sam uel of old, and at the very feet of Stanislas Kostka in his 8^ LIFE OF LEO XIII. tomb to invoke and receive a share of that Spirit who creates saints and fires apostles. It is a balmy morning in the golden autumn of Rome, this 13th of November, 1837. The beautiful church is well filled by the friends who are come to see the accomplish ed son of Count Ludovico and Countess Anna Pecci tak ing his first irrevocable engagements and devoting his young life to the God who gave it. It is true that he has no thought of laboring among the brethren of St. Stanis las in the missionary fields of the East or West Indies. There is to be fulfilled in Rome and all throughout Italy, in that year of grace 1837, an apostleship no less difficult or important than the conversion of the heathen — an apos tleship increasing both in difficulty and importance as the century advances, till, fifty years later, Christianity shall have to put forth all the zeal, the self-sacrifice, the learn ing, and the devotedness of the apostolic age to stem the tide of evil. They are a most interesting group toward whom all eyes are direcfed during the ordination ceremony in the church of Sant' Andrea. The little chapel of St. Stan islas is scarcely more than a large niche in the elliptical circuit of the marble-encrusted walls. Between the railing and the altar beneath which, in his sepulchral urn of lapis- lazuli, all that is mortal of St. Stanislas reposes, there is not space for more than a very few persons to move freely. On the platform is seated the cardinal in his priestly vest ments — a saintly presence recalling in very deed the person and the virtues of St. Charles Borromeo ; before him, at his feet, kneels the levite Joachim Pecci in his simple white alb. You might fancy that both of these figures had just come down from the groups of saintly personages painted or frescoed on the surrounding walls, such an unearthly light is on the features of both ! In a very short time this cardinal will lay aside his high dignity, his princely rank, turn his back on the near prospect of a dignity still higher, and become a novice within these same walls, emu lating the humility, the obedience, the poverty practised •'ST. ANDRE IV ON THE QUIRINAL." 85 by Stanislas Kostka, coveting only and gaining all too soon the honor of dying near where he died, clothed with the poor livery Stanislas wore, and happy to be called his brother. Pecci felt himself called to struggle and triumph in an other sphere. But still he, too, felt his soul filled by the spirit of the place. Here had passed the great soldier- saint who yearned to win all souls by persuasion and su pernatural holiness to the service of Christ, and to make the cross rule over every tribe of earth. Here, attract ed by the magnetism of Ignatius's heroic self-denial, Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia and Viceroy of Catalonia, had lived, greater in the garb of poverty than when he outshone princes in the imperial court. And here Fran cis Xavier had fed the sacred fire with which later he set all souls aflame along the coasts of India and the Archipelago to Japan, where the fire of faith still burns inextinguishable. How often had Pecci meditated on all this during his long years of serious study in the Roman College and the Sapienza, and his frequent visits to these beautiful shrines, which are, to souls touched by the love of things super nal, like shady groves near life's dusty and sun-burnt road with their springs of living water! Not without its influence on his generous spirit had been the sight of a royal tomb alongside the little chapel of St. Stanislas. Nor can the pilgrim from afar who chances to know the touching story of the king who lies buried there, pass it by without pausing reverently awhile to recall the memory of his trials and those of his saintly queen. He was Charles Emmanuel IV. of Savoy, King of Sardinia and Piedmont, and she was Marie Clotilde of France, sister of Louis XVI. and a worthy daughter of St. Louis. This royal pair, driven from their throne by the Revolutionary armies under Bonaparte, had to fly frora country to country as the wave of French invasion spread. But everywhere they won the adrairation and love of all classes by their noble fortitude, their benefactions, and the 86 LIFE OF LEO XIII. sweet fragrance shed by the angelic virtues of the queen. Scarcely had they been restored to their kingdom when she was called away to her rest, and he, arabitious only to be worthy of her in the better life, laid down his recovered sceptre and became a poor lay brother in this house where St. Stanislas had Hved and died. Little dreamed he, as his last years were spent here in the shadow of the Peace Eternal, that long ere the century had closed princes of his own blood would be enthroned yonder across the way in the Quirinal ; that the men whom he called his brothers and served with his royal hands would be pitilessly expelled from their home ; and that house and church, the chapel and shrine of St. Stanislas and his own resting-place in death, must disappear before the blind hatred of the new domination. But we must not anticipate. On the last day of that same year, 1837, Cardinal Odes calchi, in the private chapel of his residence in the vica riate, conferred the order of Priesthood on Joachim Pecci. As the year 1838 dawned upon the world the young priest was privileged to go up to the Altar of the Lamb, and to offer that Eucharistic oblation which to the priest is the sweetest, dearest, and raost unfailing source of com fort, strength, and zeal in the divine service. How he shall need the light and strength from on high, and to what uses he was to put them, we shall see presently. Part Second, JOACHIM PECCI'S ADMIXISTRATIVE AND DIPLOMATIC CAREER, yamiarVy 1838-1S46. CHAPTER VI. MONSIGNOR pecci's FIRST SHINING PROOFS OF PRACTI CAL STATESMANSHIP — GOVERNOR OF BENEVENTO. [1838 to 1841.] *^^HE life of Joachim Pecci was thenceforward devoted \Si^ to the service of the Holy See, although his hope and desire were that he might be allowed to labor for it in Rome and to confine his attention to purely ecclesias tical matters. Cardinal Sala, who was well acquainted with the wishes of his prot6ge and with his capacity, had taken pains to have hira attached to the great congregations of the Propaganda, of Bishops and Regulars, and of the Coun cil.* Cardinal Larabruschini, who was the Pope's Secre tary of State, or Prirae Minister, and who appreciated Monsignor Pecci's rising raerit, had him appointed official to several other raost iraportant bodies, placing him, in this preparatory stage, under the especial care of the learned prelates (soon to be cardinals) Frezza and Brunelli. This solicitude about his thorough training was an evidence of the great opinion they had of his ability and character. He must have given more than ordinary satisfaction to the cardinals who watched his conduct so closely during the trying cholera season, and they must have reported to the Holy Father how well fitted the young prelate was to raanage the raost iraportant public business and to govern men; for Gregory XVL, in February, 1838, ap pointed him Delegate or Governor of the Province of Benevento, with instructions to repair without delay to his government. This little principality, which is only forty-six geo- *See Appendix C. 89 90 LIFE OF LEO XIII. graphical square railes in extent, was given, like other possessions, to the Popes by the piety of forraer ages. It is situated in the raidst of what was once the kingdom of Naples, a short day's journey frora the city of that name, and in the midst of a population which, in 1838, had been rendered utterly reckless of all rule by the preceding po litical and social changes. Napoleon I., in his hour of undisputed supreraacy, had given this little territory, with the title of Prince of Benevento, to his clever and unprin cipled rainister, Talleyrand. There are writers who say, not without sorae show of good reason, that Talleyrand, whose wife Pius VII. had refused to see during his stay in Paris for the coronation ceremonies, had revenged himself on the Pontiff by urging the crowned soldier to possess himself of the Papal States, and to bestow on him, the apostate ex-Bishop of Autun, a slice of the territory thus sacrilegiously and iniquitously taken away from an unarmed and defenceless sovereign. This is not the place to show how little such usurpation and spoliation served either the emperor or the minister who was his evil genius. But the French rule in Bene vento, as well as the short-lived reign of Murat in Naples, together with the growth and spread, in the south of Italy especially, of Carbonarisra, Jacobinisra, brigandage, and law lessness, rendered the governraent of these populations a raatter of alraost raoral irapossibility, once the French had withdrawn and the forraer rulers resuraed their sway. The men who had been the firmest in their loyalty to the princes expelled by Napoleon, and had been most ac tive in organizing against the French occupiers the gue rilla bands which defied the pursuit of the best-disciplined troops, soon becarae theraselves the terror of the entire country. They levied a heavy tax on the towns and ham> lets they protected, or pretended to protect, against the foreign invader ; they blackmailed the rich and the powC' ful, and profited by the fear they inspired to oppress and to plunder friends as well as foes, and to gratify with im^ punity their greed or their private resentments, Indeed, MGR. PECCI AS GOVERNOR OF BENEVENTO. gl the powerful and the rich who had, in the beginning of the invasion, been instruracntal in getting up these arraed bands, and had often led them in their desperate encoun ters with the French, soon began to feel that brigandage was a powerful weapon for serving their own selfish pur poses, even when it had no longer the pretext of serving the public good. The restoration, therefore, of the Bourbons to Naples and of the Pope to Rome found, in every province of the southern kingdom at least, society in town and country fallen back to the disorders of the feudal times. The wealthy and the nobles had filled their castles with arraed retainers, and these had to live on the country. In the little province of Benevento another evil seri ously increased and coraplicated this state of lawlessness and confusion. The Papal rule was raild and fatherly at all tiraes ; the people had no heavy burden of iraposts or taxes to bear. Then a sraall province situated in the very heart of a foreign and quite different government would naturally become the refuge of smugglers and a retreat for evil-doers flying frora justice.* There was thus perpetual risk of conflict between the Neapolitan and the Papal authorities, as well as a growing conterapt for all law and order araong the Beneventini, particularly among the classes interested in maintaining disorder and violence. Such was the state of things for which it was expected a young priest of twenty-eight years could find a reraedy. Gregory XVI. and his counsellors raust have had a very high opinion of the youthful prelate, and his ability to cope with well-organized bands of desperate raen, to think of despatching hira on such a mission, when others, far more experienced and of higher dignity, had failed to check the inveterate disorder and had retired, baffled, frora their battle with brigandage and smuggling. But, whether he had taken the seeds of typhoid fever *See the author's "Leo XHI- and his Probable Policy," New York, March, 1878 ; MS, 92 LIFE OF LEO XIII. with him from Rome, or had contracted the disease during the then long and tedious journey through the Pontine Marshes or his brief stay in Naples, he was taken sudden ly ill the third day after his arrival in Benevento. Per haps, considering the nature of the disorders which he was commissioned to repress, and the numbers of raen of all classes interested in their continuance, it was a kindly dis position of Providence which permitted the young Dele gate to be thus brought to death's door almost immedi ately on his arrival amidst the excited population. The Beneventini had been very favorably impressed by the youth, the dignified bearing, the gentle courtesy, and the graceful speeches o^ their new governor ; and while both the lawless among them and the law-abiding were discuss ing the qualities of the man and his probable course of action, they were startled to hear that his life was in immi nent danger. Then people began to speak of the good ness he had displayed toward the poor people during the terrible visitation of the cholera, and the grateful popular heart was moved by the mortal peril of one so young and so accomplished, sent among them, too, on an errand of raercy in favOr of the oppressed laboring classes. The ripest medical skill which Naples could supply was summoned ; but the very best physicians could only declare that their skill was powerless, so malignant was the distem per and so rapid the effects of its poison on a frame ex hausted by long and severe study, and perhaps weakened by the austerities of ascetic fervor. The case was pro nounced hopeless. Meanwhile p-ublic prayers were offered for his recovery in all, the churches of the city. But the ardent southern nature would not be contented with that. As the danger of losing their youthful governor increased hourly, and people could only speak of his goodness, his piety, and his learn ing, he seemed to them an angel sent to heal all their pub lic ills, and about to be suddenly taken from them in pun ishment of their own evil doines. A DA.VCEROUS ILLNESS g? In the outskirts of Bcnc\cnto is one of tlmsc sanctu aries of the Blessed Virgin Mar)-, one of those chosen spots dear to those who. in the ever-recurring political commo tions of the times and the popular suffering they brought in their train, loved to come to the Incarnate Son of God and to supplicate His aid, as it were, in the house of His Mother and through her intercession. This sanctuary, where the popular belief asserted that our Lord had often heard the cry of bruised hearts and nccd\- souls, was called the Church of the Virgin of Graces. Thither the citizens went in solemn procession to implore Chri.st's IMother to plead with her Son for a life so dear to them — so precious, though they knew it not, to the Uni versal Church. There was also in Benevento at that tirae a college of Jesuits which did good work in educating the youth of the province and the neighboring country. To them Monsi gnor Pecci was well known, having been trained in their schools, and reflecting such honor on his masters by his brilliant suQcesses. Their concern was therefore great at beholding him reduced to such sudden extremity by the dreaded fever. The rector of the college. Father Tessan dori, was one of that early generation of the restored Jesu its who had sacrificed much, braved persecution, and been purified by the flame of long and malignant obloquy. The people revered him for his saintly life, the educated ad mired him for his great learning. He was simply a man of God. He joined his prayers with those of the entire popu lation, and had, moreover, recourse to one of those divine men who pass through this world like Isaias in the days of Achab and Jezabel, appearing in public only to be the in terpreters of God's judgments on an offending generation, or to confound His enemies by some unexpected display of His power; who were, in seasons of dire distress, the comfort and the salvation of the famishing and plague- stricken. Such had Francesco de Geronimo been in the last century to the whole kingdom of Naples. And now Father Tessandori invoked his succor in favor of the young (.^ LIFE OE LEO XlII. prelate, on whose preservation so raany mighty issues de pended in the designs of Providence. Certain it is that all these prayers were heard, and that, against all hope and contrary to the judgraent of the phy sicians, the fever relaxed its hold on the victira.* On first hearing of Monsignor Pecci's illness the Pope raanifested the deepest concern. He, too, had daily prayers offered up in Rome for the recovery of the sufferer, and demanded that daily information should be sent him about the pro gress of the illness. The recovery, coraing as unexpectedly as the raalignant fever itself, filled the people of Benevento as well as the Roman Court with sincere joy. No sooner was Monsignor Pecci able to attend to business than he set about making himself thoroughly acquainted with all classes of the peo ple, and took every possible raeans to repress the invete rate disorders which had until then defied all efforts at re- forra, as well as to proraote education, agriculture, and in dustry in the province. His first act, however, was to lay, at the request of the octogenarian Cardinal Bussi, Archbishop of Benevento, the corner-stone of a new church in honor of Our Lady of Graces, destined to replace the venerable but ruinous sanc tuary whither the citizens had gone in soleran procession to pray for his own recovery. The new edifice was a votive offering to the Incarnate Word and His Mother in thanksgiving for having been preserved from the cholera the year before. The plague had committed fear- * The MS., as was to be expected where anylhing miraculous is con cerned, is extreiFely measured in its statement : " II Padre Tessandori, Rettore del Collegio dei Gesuiti, uomo di santissima vita, assisteva con carit^ amrairabile al letto del Prelato mo- rente, e con una reliquia di San Francesco di Geronimo posta sul corpo deir infermo, scongiurava con fervidissime preci la grazia della guarigione. Fu meraviglioso I'intervento di questo Santo, e non 6 lecito svelarne il segreto." — "Father Tessandori, Rector of the Jesuit College, a man of most holy life, stood by the bed of the dying prelate with admirable charity, and, by means of a relic of St. Francis de Geronimo placed on the invalid's body, he besought the grace of a perfect cure with the most fervent prayers. The mediation of the saint proved to be miraculous, but we are not allowed to reveal its secret." SUPPRESSING BRIGANDAGE AND SMUCGLlNC. 95 ful ravages in Naples and its environs, but spared Bene vento. The entire city and country was represented at the solemn ceremony of blessing the corner-stone. It afforded Monsignor Pecci a raost favorable opportunity for making the acquaintance of the people of every clas.s, to whom he now felt so grateful, and whose attachment to him was naturally increased by their own pious interest in his re covery. Happy and graceful at all times in his discourses, his words on this occasion must have had, together with the eloquence of the heart, a peculiar force and apposite- ness from his own relation toward the people and the province. The brigands, sraugglers, outlaws, and their protectors fancied, at first, that they could be more than a match for the young scholar, pale irom the long vigils of his study in Rome, and now sadly debilitated by a dangerous illness. But the knowledge he had previously had, as a high officer of the Roman governraent, of the condition of things in Benevento and of the raisdeeds of the raen who now con fronted hira, had enabled the delegate to raake up his raind_ to quick, sharp, and decisive measures. The Pontifical troops at his disposal made a sudden and combined descent on the principal strongholds of the bri gands, on the raost secret retreats of the outlaws and sraug glers. One of the most dreaded chiefs of these lawless bands, who kept the country in perpetual fear, was one Pasquale Colletta, who had his centre of operations in the Villa Mascambroni, whence, at the head of fourteen des peradoes like hiraself, he was in the habit of raiding the country on every side. All had to pay this brigand black mail in order to save their property, persons, and lives. It was with equal joy and surprise, therefore, that the Beneventini one morning beheld this dreaded tyrant, with every raan of his band, led in chains through their streets by the Pontifical soldiers. Toward raen who had stained theraselves with innocent blood, and who had set at naught all law and authority, the Delegate was justly severe. No 96 LIFE OF LEO XIII. intercession availed to save the raurderer, the raidnight rob ber, the oppressor of the weak, the defenceless and inoffen sive. But with this inflexible firmness toward the invete rate criminal and law-breaker he joined great patience in ex amining into the cases referred to hira, and great impartiali ty in weighing the evidence for and against the criminal. The decision once given, however, was irrevocable. He was, if anything, more severe toward criminals of high social standing than toward those of inferior rank and education. Nor did it avail the noble, wealthy, or power ful relatives or friends to intercede for high offenders, once the guilt of the latter had been clearly established. One of the most serious sources of difficulty between the Pontifical and the Neapolitan governraents arose from the fact that nurabers of political conspirators and others guilty of high political raisderaeanors in the kingdom of Naples had long found a safe refuge in the province of Benevento, where they continued to hatch their plots and to defy all pursuit. This had given rise to grave compli cations. Monsignor Pecci's firmness toward these refugees forced thera to quit the Pontifical territory and to seek an asylum elsewhere. Thereby the difficulty between the two' gov ernments was happily terminated, and King Ferdinand ex pressed his satisfaction and thanks through the Marquis del Carretto, his minister. In an earlier biography the author related, in substance, the following fact, to which later authentic information permits hira to add fuller details. One day, while the whole province of Benevento and the adjacent Neapolitan districts were excited over the success with which Monsignor Pecci was following up his raids on brigandage and srauggling, a nobleman of the for raer locality, who had been the most active promoter of all these disorders, had the audacity to complain to the Dele gate that the custora-house officers had not respected the privacy of his horae, nor the dignity of raarquis inherited frora his ancestors. Vainly did Monsignor Pecci endeavor HOW HE TREATED GUILTY NOBLES. 97 to convince his arrogant visitor that the laws are made for all classes in the community without distinction of birth or rank ; and that the highest in station owe to those beneath them the example of being law-abiding. The man's pride was up in arms against such reasoning, as well as against the pale, sickly young prelate who had dared to put such an insult on his nobility as to threaten to have his ances tral castle searched by the gendarmerie. He told the Delegate to his face that he would forth with set out for Rome, whence he would soon return with an order recalling the man who was turning the country upside down. " You may go on your errand, ray lord raar quis," was the firra and calm reply. " But I warn you that on arriving in Rome you shall have to pass through Castle Sant' Angelo before carrying your complaints to the Vati can." The answer completely cowed the blusterer, who had to give up all thought of resistance. Immediately after ward his castle was surrounded and taken by the Pontifical troops, and its numerous garrison of brigands and sraug glers carried off to prison. In this campaign against brigandage and smuggling Monsignor Pecci's right-hand man had been an officer of the name of Sterbini. With his aid he also established cus toms offices, with an efficient military support, at the most iraportant points of the frontier, giving to Sterbini the su perintendence of the whole.* The young Governor did not content himself with rid ding the province of all these chronic sources of evil ; he had carefully and conscientiously studied its resources and the needs of the population. To develop agriculture and other local industries, roads, good and practical at all sea sons, must be opened between Benevento and the adjoining provinces of Molise, Terra di Lavoro, and Avellino. This would make their market-towns easily accessible to his people, and place the markets of Benevento within easy distance of the neighboring Neapolitan populations. *MS. 7 98 LIFE OF LEO XIII. He made a rapid journey to Rome to confer with Gre gory XVI. and his ministers on what he purposed doing for the development of the province entrusted to him, and returned with full powers to carry out the plans proposed. So the new roads were at once constructed. Moreover, the taxes and iraposts levied by the French during their occu pation, and, like all French exactions in countries held by the sword, wrung from the people in spite of the absence of coramerce and local industry, had not been altogether repealed after the restoration of the Papal authority. The young Delegate, who had eyen then a keen eye for the needs of both country and people, a just and warm sense of the duties more even than of the rights of the govern ment with respect to the governed, had not much difficulty in persuading one so wise and so unworldly as Gregory XVI. and his treasurer, Monsignor Tosti. The people of Benevento were relieved of their bur dens ; brigandage and smuggling disappeared ; the reign of law, with order, peace, and security, was firmly estab lished in town and country ; agriculture revived in this atmosphere of true liberty with law and with lightened taxation ; industry and commerce sprang into new life with agriculture and the opening of accessible markets. All men went about their business without fear of midnight violence or outrage committed in the open day. It was a transformation ; and less than three years of wise states manship and true political economy had sufficed to make the change. Just then the King of Naples was urging the Pontifical governraent to exchange the province of Benevento for a larger territory adjoining the Papal States, and apparently much more desirable to the Pope. The negotiation was very nearly concluded when the Secretary of State, Cardi nal Larabruschini, thought it proper to notify Monsignor Pecci and to ask him to give his advice in writing. This made the latter write at once an energetic remonstrance against the impolicy of such an exchange, accompanied by a detailed report and considerations of a high political and THE YOUNG GOVERNOR'S STATESMANSHIP. 99 moral order which should forbid the Pope's government frora entertaining such a proposition. Among the motives urged against the cession of Benevento were deep religious reasons. The ecclesiastical province of that name had one metropolitan and fourteen suffragan sees, so that the spirit ual needs of the people were far better provided for than they were likely to be under a merely secular government. The advice of the Delegate prevailed with the Holy Father, and the negotiations were broken off. So, with the extirpation of brigandage, the expulsion of political conspirators and refugees, and the revival of agri culture and industry, it was now an easy task to govern Benevento. Any delegate would be sure to be welcome and blessed there who would be more anxious to fulfil his duties as the representative of a fatherly sovereign than to stand on his rights as a ruler and a master. Gregory XVL, whose expectations had been more than justified by the inexperienced young prelate of twenty- eight, had now a wider field for his talent — an administra tion beset with far raore difficulties. So Monsignor Pecci was suddenly summoned to Rome. But to this day his name is loved and blessed by the Bene ventini. One circumstance unmentioned in our manuscript Me moir occurred soon after Monsignor Pecci's departure fox Benevento — that was the death of his father, which took place on March 8, 1838. It was a great grief to the young: prelate, and contributed not a little, perhaps, to the utter prostration which at one tirae threatened to cut off all hopes of his recovery. CHAPTER VII. PERUGIA AND ALL UMBRIA FIRST BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH JOACHIM PECCI — HOW THE YOUNG STATESMAN DEALT WITH THE CAUSES OF ITALY'S UNREST. [May, 1841, to January, 1843.] ^T^ONSIGNOR PECCI was recalled to Rome from his ^ B -^ government in May, 1841, and was immediately appointed Delegate of Spoleto. This was rapid promotion for one so young. But, araid the effervescence which the revolutionary societies were foraenting all through the Papal States — all through the Italian Peninsula, indeed — the Sovereign Pontiff thought that one who had shown so deep and almost intuitive a knowledge of the means of preventing as well as of curing popular discontent should be sent to one of the principal centres of agitation — Pe rugia. Perugia, the capital of Umbria, is, like Chiusi and Spo leto, like Orvieto and Siena, like the ancient Etruscan Fiesole, one of those hill-cities with which Central Italy abounds, and whose position above the plain suggests se curity from predatory warfare, where it has not been cho sen also for security against the raalaria which ravages the lowlands. It was one of those mediaeval repubhcs whose growth was fostered by the Church, and whose foundation and progress were the joint product of free labor sanctified and sustained by religion. Like its sister-commonwealths of Umbria, Etruria, Emilia, and Lombardy, Perugia had a long struggle against the ambition of the feudal nobles and its own wealthy burgesses, all striving to win the mastery by force of arms or to purchase it by gold. Gold and the military skill of the aristocracy succeeded everywhere in sti fling the liberty which the workingraen's guilds had created, MGR. PECCI APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF UMBRIA. Id in possessing themselves of the rich field cultivated so pain fully during long centuries by religion and free labor work ing side by side, and just as it was ripening into the golden harvest of the raost magnificent civilization the world had ever seen. This beautiful city of Perugia, just as it had passed for ever out of the hands of one set of tyrants to be ruled by the Popes as sovereigns, was raade still raore beautiful by one of its own adopted sons, Pietro Vanucci (better known as the painter Perugino, the raaster of the great Raphael). In the latter half of the fifteenth century the tyranny which had sprung up in the Italian free cities on the ruins of rae- diaeval liberty was half-concealed under the outward forms of self-government still left in the hands of the citizens. The thrift of the labor guilds had literally created Siena and Florence, Pisa and Genoa, Perugia and Arezzo and Assisi, just as they had Milan and Lodi, Crema, Cremona, Mantua, and Verona, with so many others all over the land. It was the Guild of Merchants who invited Pietro Va nucci to adorn the City Exchange with the raasterpieces of art which we admire even in their decay. And the mag nificent cathedral, with the numerous churches which shine on the hillside like brilliants in the diadem of a queen — what are they, like those of Florence, Siena, Pisa, and Milan, but the creations of a generous people of workingmen, craftsmen, and merchants ? The important province of which Perugia was the capi tal possessed many beautiful cities, each sprung from the same forces of labor, magnificent piety, thrift, religion, and liberty. Near at hand was Assisi on its hill-top, with the glorious teraple and monastery which had sprung, grown up, and blossomed out of the tomb of St. Francis. Why mention others ? But in the year 1841 the seeds left behind by French Voltaireanism and Jacobinism had been long growing and waxing strong, till they now defied all efforts to uproot them. They had become so thickly mixed with the wheat in the ripening harvest-field that to the wisest husbajidry I02 LIFE OF LEO XIIL it was a puzzle to know how to prevent them from utterly choking the good grain. Italy in 1820 counted upwards of one hundred thou sand Carbonari, or charcoal-burners. But all the Carbonari of 1820 were, some writers affirm, not hostile to rehgion, certainly not to the religion of Christ. The more formida ble, far more wide-spread, infinitely better organized socie ties which covered, like a net from which there was no es cape, every province and city, every town and haralet of the Peninsula, were pledged to +he destruction of the exist ing Church and religion, as to that of the sole barrier which stood between thera and the realization of a United Italy, free from foreign domination ; of a kingly Italy first, if so it must be, but finally in the constitution of a republic without Church, pontiff, or priest — a radical centralized democracy. Ideas, in our day, are the seed which the great vehicles of thought, the printing-press, journalism, and club oratory, sow all over the face of the earth, and cultivate there with a scientific husbandry matured and perfected by our know ledge of the intellectual past. Illuminism, Voltaireanism, Jansenism, and then the Jacobinic frenzy employed these agencies to destroy the Christian order and the Christen dora of our fathers. Mazzini's genius welded all these agencies into one mighty force. His was the brain which conceived, Garibaldi's was the arm which wielded, this mighty weapon ; both were taken into the service of Ca vour, who also had at his beck the veteran army and fleet of an Italian kingdom. These were the forces and the men against which the old Italian political and social order was expected to do battle. But, while the aggressors knew their own purpose thoroughly, saw clearly the goal toward which their course was bent, had counted their resources up to a fraction, and . were sure to be a unit when the time for action came, and resolved as well to be stopped on their way by none of the old-time forms or scruples, their adversaries were wrapped in p. half-dreamy consciousness of approaching danger. FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH PERUGIA. 103 trusted iraplicitly for the preservation of what was raost venerable in existing institutions to some intervention of Providence ; whereas that Providence, who created the tre mendous forces of free human agency, will have communi ties and their rulers ever wide awake to foresee dangers, and ever prepared and able to avoid thera by timely and prompt preventives. They had no unity of purpose or of counsels, these shepherds of the peoples whose houses were undermined beneath their feet. They could not count on each other, and they scarcely counted on themselves. The Holy See, aware of the falling off among its faith ful people in consequence of their being drawn into the net of the secret societies ; aware of the spread of revolu tionary, anti-social, and anti-Christian pamphlets among the people ; alarmed by partial risings here and there, by the utterances of the press at home and the loud and undis guised boastings of the English and the French press, had become fully alive to the danger. But at home and abroad every precaution taken and every effort toward repression were denounced as acts of treason against liberty, progress, enlightenment, and modern civilization. Perugia, like Bologna, was one of the most active centres of this formidable propagandism and the agita tion it inevitably tended to produce ; they stirred up the most powerful patriotic passions combined with a passion more terrible still — the hatred of all religion, which is, like the most recently invented explosives, an uncontrol lable force, developing with a suddenness that baffles all calculations and precautions, and destroying the man who uses it as well as the man whose destruction is aimed at. Thither in 1841 was sent Joachira Pecci. He hastened to this new field of labor in order to raake immediate preparations for the expected visit to Perugia and its pro vince of Gregory XVI. For this much-abused Pope, whose every act was misconstrued and misrepresented by the anti- Catholic press of England, as well as by the organs of public opinion in the United States, was most anxious to see with his own eyes the condition of his people, and 1 04 LIFE OF LEO XIII. to remedy, so far as he raight, the abuses and evils of which they could justly complain. One thing at that time dis agreeably struck strangers visiting Perugia. The old me diaeval road leading up from the plain to the city was — as travellers may remeraber the old road at Laon running straight up to the fortifications at an angle of forty-five degrees — almost impracticable for vehicles of any descrip tion. This was a serious drawback to traffic. The new Delegate saw at a glance what was to be done, and lost not a moment in doing it. Within twenty days a broad and well-paved thoroughfare winding up the hillside gave access to the place. And up this new road the Sove reign Pontiff was escorted by an enthusiastic multitude. It was thenceforward known as the Strada Gregoriana. Monsignor Pecci's reputation had preceded him in Um bria: people expected from him intelligent and salutary reforms. The opening and completion of this new road made on them a very favorable impression, convincing them that their governor was a practical man who had an eye to the popular needs. This also inspired them with no little fervor in preparing for the reception of the sove reign. They took it as an evidence of his fatherly interest in their welfare that he had sent them a Delegate who had sincerely at heart the improvement of the country and the happiness of the people. So Gregory XVI. had from Pe rugia a right hearty welcome. He felt its warmth, guessed to whom he was indebted for all these demonstrations of respect and affection, and thanked Monsignor Pecci for them. Gregory had a special predilection for the beautiful mediaeval city, and the greeting given him by its people delighted him beyond measure. "During this journey through the provinces," he said to the Delegate in pre sence of a courtly crowd, " I have been in some places received like a monk ; in several others with the ceremony due to a cardinal ; in Ancona and Perugia I have had a reception such as truly becomes a sovereign."* In Cittk *MS.: "Nel mio viaggio in alcuni luoghi sono stato riceTOto da WISE MEASURES OF REFORM. 105 della Pieve the Pope rested for three days, during which he placed in the hands of the Delegate many presents and decorations for the most meritorious citizens of Perugia and Umbria. " Before long, Monsignor," he said, " and as soon as I shall have returned to Rorae, I shall also reraera ber you." But the Delegate did not content hiraself with follow ing the Pope to the principal cities of Umbria and sharing in the triumphal welcome everywhere given to the Holy Father. No sooner had the latter left Umbria for Rome than the Delegate began in good earnest the work he had set himself to accomplish. After doing what was of raost pressing urgency for the capital, he resolved to visit every coramune of the province in person, examining closely into every detail of local administration, informing himself ex actly of the needs of each locality and the grievances cora plained of, correcting as he proceeded inveterate abuses, removing guilty or incapable officials, and taking note of the reforms to be submitted to the central government in Rome. His presence was everywhere hailed with real satisfac tion by the people. What he did on the spot, and what he promised to obtain frora superior authority, contributed largely to reraove well-founded popular discontent and to appease the agitation foraented by the secret societies. He was very firra in putting down these pernicious or ganizations. But he was not satisfied with repression ; he left nothing undone to take away frora these conspirators against Church and State the very reason of their existence by diminishing the burdens of the people, by fostering — as he had done in Benevento — industry, agriculture, and cora merce, by securing an impartial, inexpensive, and prompt adra.inistration of justice, thereby making the people love and respect the law and its rainisters. Meanwhile he was inexorable in punishing lawlessness and all disturbance of the public peace. Frate, in molti altri convenientemente, ma da Cardinale ; in Ancona e Perugia veramente da Sovrano." I06 LIFE OF LEO XIIL In this way, within the space of one twelvemonth, Monsignor Pecci succeeded in effecting most iraportant and beneficial changes in every departraent of the pub lic adrainistration. The coramunal or town councils were entirely remodelled ; to cut off all pretexts for delays in terrainating law-suits, all the courts of Perugia were united in one great building, and every door was closed against the ruinous custom of adjourning and procrastinating. So active was he in removing all causes of public discontent, and in repressing and punishing private wrong-doing, that there catne a time when the prisons of Perugia did not con tain a single criminal. Moreover, to encourage thrift araong the laboring class es, and to provide funds at a low interest for industrious tradesmen and farmers, he exerted hiraself strenuously to establish the Perugia Savings-Bank, contributing a gene rous share to the necessary capital. But even then, at the very outset of his public career, the young statesman, who sought to grasp the whole prob lem of Italy's unrest and aspirations, clearly discerned the fact that there could be for the peoples of the Penin sula neither true political unity nor real and stable social progress and prosperity without a thorough raoral renova tion accoraplished by true religion. Religion, to fit a people for a new phase of existence, a new period of civilization and national greatness, must de scend deeply into minds and hearts, implant there strong convictions, and the generous impulses to great deeds and great sacrifices which can alone spring frora strong con victions. All these springs of greatness in private and in public life had been either entirely obliterated in a great portion of the Italian people or weakened raore or less in the reraainder by the education given to the nation by the teachings of French infidelity, by the terrible influence of the long-prevalent revolutionary Jacobinisra, and by the open or secret action of the anti-Christian societies. The most active and energetic elements of public life in Italy RECALLED TO ROME. I07 in 1841-42 were the raen in whose souls and lives the one absorbing passion was to overthrow religion and utterly to discredit araong the masses the principles and practices of ancestral morality. A scholar hiraself, and passionately devoted to the pur suit of the highest intellectual culture, Joachim Pecci be lieved that one of the raost potent means of regenerating Italy was to give her leading classes a thoroughly religious as well as a thoroughly superior education. From them, he thought, true enlightenment would descend downward in society, helping the clergy and the most popular teach ing orders of raen and women to co-operate with Christian parents in thoroughly educating the children of the lower and middle classes. He therefore used all his authority and influence to open schools wherever there were none, to encourage and improve them where they existed. He especially exerted hiraself to give a new life to the College Rosi of Spello, the Pope appointing him Apostolic Visitor of the same. Its finances were placed on a prosperous and secure footing ; a new staff of able professors were attached to the institution ; its studies were thoroughly reorganized, and every precaution taken for the maintenance of that se vere discipline without which there can be no steady pro gress in learning. The Delegate was planning rauch more for the intellec tual and moral advancement of Umbria, for the develop raent of the raaterial resources of that beautiful and classic land, when Gregory XVI. recalled him and prepared to send him on a mission of far higher importance and wider utility. Thus was fulfilled the Pontiff's promise made at Citta della Pieve : " Before long I shall remember you also." CHAPTER VIII. ARCHBISHOP PECCI STUDIES THE WORKING OF FREE CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN BELGIUM. [1843 to 1846.] 'HE young prelate, still in his thirty-third year, was not a little surprised to learn frora the Holy Father that he had been chosen to fill the post of Apostolic Nun cio in the court of Brussels. This was in the beginning of January, 1843. On the 27th of that month the Pope nominated him to the dignity of titular Archbishop of Damietta. On February 19 his episcopal consecration took place in the ancient church of San Lorenzo in Pa- nisperna, erected on the spot where, according to the con stant tradition of Christian Rome, the heroic deacon of the second century was tortured to death. The conse crating prelate was Cardinal Lambruschini, the Secretary of State, who took a fatherly interest in Monsignor Pecci, on whose noble character and splendid abilities he had set a high estimate. A month later, on March 19, the Archbishop-Nuncio set out for his destination. Traversing France rapidly, he spent a few days in Namur with his old friend and class mate in the Roman College, Canon Montpellier, later Bishop of Liege, and one of the most distinguished pre lates of Belgium. In Brussels he was warmly welcomed by Monsignor (afterward Cardinal) Fornari, who had been his professor of canon law in the College of Nobles, and who had just been promoted to the Nunciature of Paris. The veteran diplomat was able to give his old pupil precious information regarding the duties he was expected to fulfil in Belgium — duties which the division of religious and political parties, and the perpetual intrigues of the 108 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN BELGIUM. 1 09 already numerous and powerful secret societies, rendered extremely delicate and difficult. In the separation of Belgium from Holland in 1830 the main directing force had been the love of religious liberty in the Catholic population, to whora the House of Orange refused obstinately the freedom of conscience stipulated by the Congress of Vienna. The union of the provinces, at best, had been a forced and unnatural one. There were irreconcilable antipathies of race as well as of religion — the meraory of long historical antagonisra, rendering the yoke of Holland still raore galling to the Celtic Belgians, who, in race and language and creed, had raore affinity to their powerful French neighbors. But it were hard to say which was the greater error, that of the Congress of Vienna de ciding by a stroke of the pen the political and religious destiny of five or six millions of Catholics, or that of that other Congress of 1830-31 iraposing on emancipated Bel gium a forra of constitutional governraent to which the people were strangers. The political quacks who think that the constitutional forras which suit the English race at horae or in the United States ought also to suit Bel- giura, or France, or Spain, or Italy, forget that the institu tions of a country are the natural growth and outcorae of a people's habits and social life. Where, as in Great Britain and in the American Union, the form of government, with the laws and the judiciary, has ever been a part of the peo ple's existence, it needs no political education to train the masses to the knowledge and exercise of their political rights. They are raatters of course, as farailiar to the farraer in the country as his implements and methods of agriculture ; as handy to the craftsman in the cities as the rules and practice of his trade. How different among the Latin nations of Continental Europe and their offshoots was the use of the suffrage, whether open or secret, in electing to raunicipal or national offices! What a farce the ballot was from the beginning, and is still, in countries we raight narae! And what oppression is practised, in the name of liberty and under the sham of constitutional 1 10 LIFE OF LEO XIIL forras, by peoples among whom anti- Christian teachings destroy the religious and moral sense, with the elementary and essential ideas of individual right, making what they call free governraent the most hideous intolerance and the downright and unrestrained proscription of all opinions, convictions, and acts which differ from their own false and narrow notions ! Frora the very birth of constitutional governraent in Belgiura the country became, like the little Republic of Geneva, a hot-bed in which sprang up a luxuriant growth of secret associations conspiring against the monarchical institutions of the Continent. All political exiles, all so cialistic and anarchical dreamers, found a safe refuge there, and there wrote and published, plotted and planned. Belgium, Catholic Belgium, became especially the para dise of this Occult Force, not of the purely or professed benevolent and kindly associations which go by different names wherever the English language prevails, but of those bodies of conspirators against Church and State, against the entire social order inherited from the Chris tendom of the past, who are the legal and legitimate de scendants of Weishaupt and his Illuminism. English and American societies long and blindly refused to acknow ledge the evidence offered thera that this Occult Force on the Continent of Europe, as well as in Spanish and Portu guese America, was a vast and mighty conspiracy against God. Now our people have opened their eyes, and severed every tie of brotherhood, not of solidarity, with these banded enemies of all religion and of all society, since without religion society is irapossible. The reader, knowing the character, the creed, the aims, principles, and policy of this mighty organization in Eu rope, will not be surprised at the alarm and consternation of the Belgian Catholics when they found, from the very first day when Belgium elected her representatives to Par liament, that they had for principal adversaries the mem bers of that body. THE KING OF THE BELGIANS. I I I We have often heard the Belgian hierarchy, as well as Belgian Catholic statesmen, accused of bigotry, intolerance, obscurantism, because of the stand they took and main tained in favor of denominational education, as against the godless schools patronized and advocated by Frfere-Orban and his brother-sectarians in the past and present. But the programmes of late years published both in France and in Belgium by the Occult Force triumphant must convince any impartial reader, if he be a Christian man, that the battle fought in constitutional Belgium from the beginning was between the supporters of Christianity, the advocates of a thorough religious education, on the one hand, and the conspirators against rehgion, who wanted to get possession of the youth of the kingdom and extin guish in their souls all knowledge or all love of the ancient faith of Christendom. Such was the battle which raged in Belgium when, in late March, 1843, Archbishop Pecci presented to the Court of Brussels his credentials as ambassador of the Holy See. Who was the king to whora these letters were presented ? Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, King of the Belgians, has al ready had biographers and historians, official and unofficial, to tell the story of his life and reign. His character is as well known to American as it is to European readers. The statesmen who had a voice in Continental affairs when the Great Powers decided who would be the constitutional head of the new kingdom decided in favor of this prince, be cause he was a liberal in politics, a nominal Protestant in religion, a member of this same organization, who had been raarried to the heiress to the British crown, who was uncle to Queen Victoria and her husband's near relative, and who was soon to become the son-in-law of the French King Louis Philippe. These two men were both cast in the same mould. What the Belgian sovereign was the public has long ago learned from the published meraoirs of his inti mate friend and chief counsellor. Baron Stockraar, as well as that of Prince Albert and his wife. King Leopold, th-as placed on the throne of Belgium I I 2 LIFE OF LEO XIII. as a checkraate to the Ultraraontane tendencies of the men who had created free Belgiura, and a raan acceptable to the nuraerous, powerful, and sworn enemies of the Church in that Catholic country, threw the whole weight of his influence from the beginning into the scale against denomi national education. Those araong us in America who have always looked upon our public-school system as unimpeachable, because it freely educates the children of all citizens, rich and poor, without any regard to creed, will not see in the conduct of King Leopold anything that is blameworthy. But we in Araerica are beginning to see that the public-school system was from the first open to two serious and unanswerable objections. It levied a heavy tax on those who objected conscientiously to schools where no religion whatever was taught, and refused to grant any share of the school fund to denominations who insisted on a religious teaching in their schools ; and it tended practically (as it has now, confessed ly, ended in doing) to turn out young men and women in different to all religious principle and practice — men and women all the more dangerous to the comraunity that their trained intellect and acquired knowledge are a ter rible agency in the service of their passions, whereas no fear of God is there to restrain them from evil courses or to encourage thera to well-doing. Besides, in a country like the United States, where so raany sects exist side by side, with equal rights before the law, if the raajority raust decide the school question like all others of public iraportance, the rainority must perforce submit. Still, that minority will deem it oppression to be taxed for an institution which they cannot approve of or profit by without violating their conscience. But where, as in Belgium in 1843, the immense raajority were Catho lics, and only deraanded to be left free in educating their own children as conscience dictated, it was intolerable in the rainority to irapose on thera a school system con demned by the Church, and which both conscience and experience proved to be blameworthy and pernicious. s.STC"i-iNea.wi-LiE i His Holiness Leo XIII. ARCHBISHOP PECCI A T BRUSSELS. I I 3 Yet the English-speaking world, through its organ, the public press, has invariably sided with the tyrannical mino rity, and held up the struggles of the Catholics of Belgium and their clergy as the battle of ignorant and intolerant fanaticism against enlightenment, intellectual progress, and modern civilization. And the struggle goes on still in the year 1887. It is still the contest between two antagonistic and diametrically opposite forces, that of religion on the one hand and that of irreligion on the other, for the possession of education, the mightiest means ever devised for the raoral elevation or the utter destruction of the human race. Had not the political battles of to-day in Belgium been fought on the same ground and for the same vital issues as in 1843 3-nd the preceding decade, we should apologize to the reader for what might appear a digression of unwar rantable length. But Archbishop Pecci, as Nuncio to Brus sels, found hiraself in presence of the sarae hostile camps. which at this raoment, and from his elevation to the Papal' chair, occupy the attention of Leo XIII. On his first appearance at court the new Ambassador of the Holy See made a most favorable impression. It was: evident to all that he was an accomplished scholar, a well- bred and courteous gentleman, whose conversation, while. carefully avoiding political subjects and diplomatic ques tions, could take the widest range. His learning, his edu cation in the capital of Christendom, the historic centre of art culture, science, and letters, enabled him to speak on all topics with equal ease and authority. He had also inherit ed not a little of Roman wit. None, however, felt its edge save such as, in his presence, presumed to attack religion or trespass against propriety. For such offenders he had little pity. And more than one witty saying of his survives in the court circles of the Belgian capital". Happily for the court of Brussels, for the entire Belgian people, indeed, the queen was one whose life was a mirror of all woraanly virtues. Even over the raind of her scep tical husband she wielded the influence, which, deep faith. I 1 4 LIFE OF LEO XIII. accompanied by saintly deeds exercises over all raen in whom the moral sense is not quite extinct. Fervently practising the religion taught her by her exeraplary mo ther, she was also devoted to all its interests and would have it preserved to her subjects as the dearest of all trea sures. Her own education having been acquired amid the scepticism of French court society and the practical con tradiction, in French families, between the faith of one parent and the actions and professions of the other, she prized at its full value the boon of Christian education for every household, every child in her kingdom. The Belgian archbishops and bishops, in their unceas ing struggle for this raost precious fruit of the liberty of conscience guaranteed by the constitution, could always count on the sympathy of the queen and her secret ad vocacy of their sacred cause, even when prudence would not perrait her to side with thera openly. To the Nuncio her counsels were also of great assistance in the selection of a line of conduct which should protect the inalienable .rights of the Church without bringing her authority into conflicit with the principles of responsible government. At any rate, while studying the position of the Belgian Catholics and devising the best means to protect their in terests. Archbishop Pecci applied hiraself to the labor of visiting the great Catholic schools which had rendered the country faraous in the past. Instinctively the Belgian dergy felt that, in the struggle for retaining under their awn control the education of the youth of the kingdom, the first condition toward success was to raake their schodls :Supei-ior to those directed by their antagonists. There could be for the state no decent pretext for inter fering with educational establishraents which did the work they had to do better than any other of the kind, and which did raore of it. This must be the law for denominational schools the whole world over. The Belgian hierarchy and their edu cationists made it a rule for theraselves. In the capital itself the College of St. Michael, be- THE CA THOLIC COLLEGE OF ST. MICHAEL. I I 5 ing immediately under the eyes of king, ministers, and raerabers of the Legislature, was raore likely than any other to be taken by friends and foes as a raeasure of comparison in judging the excellence of the other Catholic schools and their methods. The Nuncio took a lively in terest in this important institution, visited it frequently, won the confidence and affection of professors and pupils, and by his tact as well as by his zeal spurred them on to aim at the highest standards of proficiency. Such stan dards had ever been his own. On them, in every sphere of learning, he had regulated his own studies. And no one could converse with him long, or hsten to him on public occasions when he had to honor his office and his reputa tion by some display of scholarly culture, without perceiv ing, in the exquisite finish of whatever came from his lips or his pen, how elevated were the literary and scientific ideals which he had successfully pursued. Such a man, and he a young raan, raised already to such erainence by these rare gifts, acquired as well as na tural, had invariably great influence over the studious youth whora he addressed — over the mo.st cultivated audi ences, indeed. From the visits he paid to the College of St. Michael, and the active interest he took in its advancement, dates a new period in the existence of that great diocesan school. But side by side with that college the " Liberals " of Belgium — that is, the adepts of the secret societies, who masked their real purpose in the beginning, and won over to their views very raany unsuspecting and not very serious Catholics, fascinated by the spell word of "liberalism" — had succeeded in creating an undenominational school of higher studies, with the name of " University of Brussels." This was solely under state control. The standards, the meth ods, the irreligious spirit of the French university and its dependent schools were the model after which the Belgian Liberals framed this great national institution. National they affirmed it was, although repudiated by those who had a right to speak and to act for the immense majority 1 1 6 LIFE OF LEO XIII. of the nation ; and national they persisted in calling it and persevered in making it, by supporting it with the moneys taken from the people indiscriminately, and infusing into its teaching a spirit adverse to the religious character of the Belgians, but one which they hoped— and not with out reason — to see in due tirae the spirit of the Belgian masses. What cannot education do, even when directed to the worst ends, if carried on for a few generations by the public authorities, and with all the agencies and resources that a governraent can comraand, and if assisted by the omnipre sent modern press? It was a novel and a momentous contest, that which was carried on in Belgium, and the main strategic position of which was that same University of Brussels. In 1789, just as the Estates General of France were doing their work of social destruction in liberalizing the kingdora of Saint Louis, the Emperor Joseph II. , then sovereign of the Low Countries, was bending all the re sources of his sceptic intellect and of the imperial power to dechristianize education in Belgium. His atterapt to create such an anti-Catholic school as the modern Univer sity of Brussels made the Belgian Catholics rise up like one raan and resist him with force of arms. When, in 1830, William of Orange tampered in the sarae way with the rights of the Belgian people to educate their children in accordance with their ancestral faith, the resistance to his v/ill grew, until it burst into open and triumphant insur rection. But the raen who had drawn up the constitution of 1830 knew well — sorae of thera, at least — that they were shaping an instruraent which, under the cover of protecting all the liberties of the nation, would help the unbelieving rainority toward confiscating the raost precious liberty of all — that of conscience in the right to educate the young. The University of Brussels had been established in the very dawn of Belgian independence. The raen, the heroic Catholics, who had been its parents did not suspect the ARCHBISHOP PECCI IN LOUVAIN. \ i 7 designs of the promoters of this early scheme of higher studies. The nature and tendency of the great central institution were clearly perceived only when it was an existing fact — a forraidable organism working under the sanction of the laws and drawing its support frora the public treasury. What were the leaders of the Catholic majority to do ? All efforts raade to bring back the University of Brussels to conformity with Catholic principles and practice, to make its teaching such as could be accepted with safety by Catholic parents for their children, were defeated by the resistance of the Chambers and that of the king, sup ported as these were by the liberal press of the country and by that of France, Germany, England, and the United States. In 1834 the archbishops and bishops set about restor ing the University of Louvain, which had had a world wide reputation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They could not count on state aid. But they knew their people were with thera, and they relied on God and thera selves in undertaking this unequal contest with the united forces of Continental Liberalisra. Archbishop Pecci, soon after his arrival in Brussels,* had an opportunity of visiting Louvain, of beholding in the restored University the elite of the kingdom, and of associating himself with the archbishops and bishops in their laudable endeavor to raise their great national school to the height it occupied In forraer ages, and to the un questionable superiority demanded by modern culture. On Thursday, July 27, 1843, the University of Louvain held a solemn acaderaical session for the purpose of con ferring degrees in theology and canon law. All the repre sentative men of Catholic Belgium were present, headed by the Cardinal-Archbishop of Mechlin. The Nuncio was in vited to address the graduates, and was delighted to find among the visitors the venerable De Forbin-Janson, Bishop * " Cenni Storici," c. i. n. 5 ; account extracted from L'Ami de tOrdre of March, 1878. 1 1 8 LIFE OF LEO XIII. of Nancy, lately returned from his apostolic missions in America, where many still living, from Quebec to New York, frora St. Louis to New Orleans, treasure the recol lection of his eloquence, his munificence, and his saintly life. It was a deep consolation to this son of the Crusaders of old to witness in Louvain the manifestations of that living faith which refused to yield to the disciples of Vol taire and the apostles of raodern scientism the training of the youth of Christendora. Of course the representative of the Holy See was received in Louvain with the cordial respect due to his character and raission. The rector and the members of the university faculties waited on him with an address of welcome, to which he replied in suitable and graceful terms. Then carae, in the university library, a welcome from the students. One of them, a student in the law- school, who at present fills the office of judge in the high court of Namur,* delivered a discourse in the name of his fellow-students. To this the Nuncio replied ; " I am happy," he said, " to witness here the rapid progress raade by an institution that owes in a special manner its birth to the revered clergy of Belgium, whose illustrious head I see before rae. This institution is also the crea tion of its worthy rector, of his learned staff of professors, of the whole body of Belgian Catholics. . . . Yes, the tra ditions of the ancient University of Louvain are still a living thing ; and to you, gentleraen, it belongs to per petuate thera by your labors.' You have already shown that you know how to continue the work of those who were here before you ; henceforth your Church and your country also know what they can expect from you. Fol low persistently the path you are pursuing; it will lead, doubt it not, to the most fruitful results. For my part, I cannot help being deeply moved by the sight of this assemblage of noble and dear young men whose souls are aflame with the love of the true wisdom and with devotion to Holy Church. This brilliant youth — I cannot question * M. Capelle. THE NUNCIffS DIFFICULT POSITION. I 1 9 it — shall be one day the happiness and the honor of Bel gium." The journal from which these details are taken goes on to say that in the course of the afternoon Monsignor Pecci visited and inspected carefully the colleges and other buildings belonging to the university. He could not con ceal the extreme satisfaction he felt at seeing all belonging to this great Catholic school in such a flourishing condi tion. The position of a representative of the Holy See near a court, where powerful and contrary currents of influence were apt to carry even the strongest and best-intentioned beyond the strict boundaries marked by conscience, and where weak inen are entirely lifted off their feet to drift helplessly with the tide, is one which deraands in him-who fills it the rarest gifts of the practical intellect and the up right will. The kingdom of Belgium was under the protection of the Great Powers ; its constitution, hurriedly fraraed in the hour of national triumph and enthusiasm, was accepted by a Catholic people without too close a scrutiny, in their irapatient haste to becorae an independent people with a regularly constituted governraent acknowledged by other nations. Be it said to the eternal honor of the Belgian Catholics in sanctioning by their assent the principle of absolute freedora for all forras of religious worship, they fancied they were following the example first set by the people of the United States, and which their practical good sense and true love of liberty have carried out faith fully. But the United States, happily for its people, never had, as a political party — in a minority, indeed, but active, determined, and perfectly organized — the anti-Christian sects and conspirators who in Continental Europe cloak their principles and designs under the fair name of Liberal isra or Freeraasonry. If this party were not masters of the situation in 1843, they were powerful and united enough to compel any party in the kingdora to coraproraise with I20 LIFE OF LEO XIIL them or to see the adrainistration of public affairs brought to a dead-lock. Monsignor Pecci, knowing well that a constitutional sovereign has to govern through his rainisters, and that a ministry is only the instruraent of the most powerful party, could only exert himself to win the confidence of King Leopold I. as well as the good opinion of his ministers. Once trusted and consulted by the king and taken into the confidence of his advisers, he might prevent much evil, albeit much positive good could not be achieved for the time being. That his youth, his modest and dignified presence, his courtly and reserved address did win him golden opinions from the very beginning we have araple testiraony from contemporary writers as well as from the lips of those wIk) bore a personal share in the events we are narrating or pointing to. The young Archbishop-Nuncio was an ac complished scholar and diploraat ; but he was also — every body saw and declared it — a priest of unblemished life. Such a character exercises irresistible ascendency even in royal courts, even in the councils of the most characterless politicians. " The affability of Monsignor Pecci," says on this head a Belgian biographer, " his exquisite tact, and his deep learning forced Leopold I., who was a discerning connois seur of men, to form a very high opinion of him. He endeavored to make of him a counsellor and a friend, and induced him to be a frequent visitor at court. The king often conversed farailiarly with hira, and took pleasure in propounding all sorts of difficult questions. The Nuncio, however, was never taken aback, so that the king would end by saying : ' Really, Monsignor, you are as clever a politician as you are an excellent churchraan.' " Our beloved and regretted queen, Louisa Maria, had a great veneration for the Archbishop of Daraietta, and never missed an opportunity to obtain his blessing for her self and her children. This is a fact which Monsignor Pecci GRA TEFULL Y REMEMBERED B Y THE BELGIANS. I 2 I Still remembers. Not long ago a Belgian priest, who went to Perugia to pay the prelate his respects, heard him recall these incidents. ' Yes,' said the Cardinal-Archbishop, ' I knew well the father of your present king, as well as his pious mother. I was often admitted to the cordial inti macy of the royal family, and I have often had in my arras the httle Leopold, Duke of Brabant. I reraeraber, too, that Queen Louisa Maria, who was so good a Christian, used to ask rae to bless this her oldest child, ... in order that he might be a good king. And I have often blessed him with the hope that he would.' " We say it with sincere pleasure, Monsignor Pecci has preserved a grateful reraerabrance of our country. Every time that one of our countrymen approaches him he never fails to express the sentiments of affection he entertains toward Belgium. In Belgium itself many of our active politicians who then knew him describe the superior intel ligence, the delicate grace, the practical tact with which he conducted everything pertaining to the business of his Nunciature in Brussels. In our highest society people still recollect his noble affability of manner, his correctness of judgment, and the elevation of his ideas. In the family of Count Felix de Merode * Monsignor Pecci was a wel come guest, his brilliant conversation adorning that home- circle which has reraained celebrated in the history of rao dern Belgiura." f To this testimony we add another, taken from a well- authenticated source : " The fact is that he [Monsignor Pecci] conceived so great an affection for that deeply re ligious country that he afterwards raade of his archiepis- copal palace in Perugia a staying-place for every Belgian citizen who presented himself there. There also, during vacation-time, he was in the habit of welcoming the pupils * One of the founders of Belgian independence, the father of the Countess de Montalembert and of the late Monsignor de M6rode, Min ister of Arms under Pius IX. t From a biographical notice by Count Henri de Conde in Le Courrier de FEscaut. 122 LIFE OF LEO XIII. of the Belgian College in Rorae ; and in this college he usu ally lodged when business brought him to the capital of Christendom." * Being the man he was, trusted and respected, if not be loved, by men of all classes and parties, it was natural that his influence and authority were often used to prevent or to extinguish untimely discussions. His moderation was like oil on the troubled waters. And they were rough enough in Belgium in those days. Sometiraes there was trouble between the Catholics themselves, and conflicts of rights which it required consummate prudence, as well as great learning, to terminate to the satisfaction of both par ties. " In 184s a very serious dispute arose between the Jesuits and the University of Louvain. It originated in the sudden creation of a special faculty of philosophy in the College de la Paix at Namur, the teaching of philosophy having till then been reserved in Belgiura to seminaries for clerical students, and for laymen to the Catholic Universi ty of Louvain. So the Belgian Catholics thereupon were split into two factions. For the university stood all the bishops and a great portion of the clergy ; for the Jesuits sided powerful and influential persons, even in Rome. The Nuncio did all he could to calm the public mind, and suc ceeded in getting both parties to refer their claims to the supreme judgment of the Holy See. The Pope asked the opinion of all the Belgian bishops, and adopted such a pru dential course as effectually restored peace." f The Nun cio was thus justified in refusing to give his own decision on the point in dispute. The law on intermediate education also gave rise to quite a breezy controversy araong the Catholics themselves, the Catholic press being divided in opinion, and Bishop Von Brommel, of Li6ge, taking a very decided stand. But the Nuncio's tiraely interference and wise words of adyice put a stop to the discussion, besides securing to the clergy an unexpected share in the superintendence of intermediate schools. * Civiltli Cattolica, March, 1878 ; notice by F. Ballarini. \ MS. THE BELGIAN COLLEGE IN ROME. 123 So was it when the Ronge scandal — the forerunner of the " Old-Catholic " scandal of our own days — broke out in Germany, and threatened to spread the flame of schism through the Rhenish Provinces. Monsignor Pecci at once took the most effective steps to prevent the mischief from crossing the German frontier, although its author was a native of the diocese of Li6ge. He went, without a mo- raent's delay, to confer with the bishops of Cologne, Treves, and Mayence, and coraraunicated with the nuncio at Mu nich, securing their co-operation in localizing and isolating this heretical pestilence. During his stay in Belgiura Monsignor Pecci seized upon every opportunity to encourage the prelates of that country in their constitutional efforts to obtain frora the state a due recognition and support for denominational education. He was, as the reader may have gathered from this and the preceding chapters, raore especially zeal ous in proraoting the superior education of the priesthood, judging rightly that, in the march of modern progress, the clergy should lead in intellectual excellence as in holiness of life. And as in Rome, from the earliest Christian ages, had been established schools of sacred and profane learn ing — centres from which the soundest science in all that per tains to divine things, to the governraent and discipline of the Church and the relations of all legislation with her laws, is derived for all peoples — so Monsignor Pecci wished that the Belgian bishops should send to be forraed tho roughly in Rome the raost promising clerics of their respec tive dioceses. This project was first laid by him before the assembly of the bishops at Mechlin in August, 1844, and met with a unanimous and hearty approval. No tirae was lost in giving effect to their resolution. The Holy See was but too glad to second the zeal of its Nuncio and the desire of the Belgian hierarchy. An elevated and healthy loca tion for the proposed college was found quite near the Quattro Fontane* in a vacant monastery founded in the * The Quattro Fontane, or " Four Fountains," are placed at the inter section of two of the great thoroughfares in Rome — that leading from the I 24 LIFE OF LEO XIIL seventeenth century by Barefooted Carmelites (the reform of St. Teresa), and given by Pius VII. to the Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration (called Sacrameittine). These, hav ing in their turn selected a raore desirable site near the Quirinal, left their raonastery free for other purposes. Gregory XVI. immediately sanctioned the purchase of this property. And thus the Belgian College in Rome subsists to this day as a raonuraent, and an eloquent one, of the enlightened zeal of the Archbishop of Damietta for the best interests of a country than which, if we ex cept Ireland, none more thoroughly Catholic exists, a coun try also which is, without exception, the most thrifty and prosperous on the European Continent. As the autumn of 1845 was drawing to its close Gregoi-y XVI. was persuaded to recall Monsignor Pecci from a post which he had filled with such credit to himself and the Holy See, such benefit to religion, and such satisfaction to the Belgian court, clergy, and people. The causes which raoved the Pontiff to this step, though extremely honorable to the Nuncio, may be re gretted by the statesman, the reader of this biography and its author, as they were by the raost enlightened of Monsignor Pecci's friends and conteraporaries. His recall frora Brussels to be raade Bishop of Perugia, though intended by Gregory XVI. as a reward and a pro raotion, removed from the great scene of active diplomatic service a young man of surpassing ability to bury him dur ing more than thirty-two years in the obscurity and limited usefulness of a bishop's office in a provincial town. Was this a misfortune? Porta Pia to the Quirinal Palace, and that opened or completed by Sixtus V. from St. Mary Major to the church of Trinita de' Monti, on the Pincio, and called from him Via Sistina. The four fountains are situated in niches placed in the opposing angles of the four adjoining blocks. Three of these thus belong to the three neighboring palaces of the Barbe- rini, Albani, and Trugli, the fourth to the little church of San Carlino. The practical old Franciscan monk who was the dreaded Sixtus V. wished to give the neighborhood a supply of wholesome water rather than a great work of art. Adjoining San Carlino is the Belgian College. CHAPTER IX. STUDYING LONDON, PARIS, AND ROME. [1846.] ' I 'ET us forget Perugia and its expectant people for a ( I 1 few raoraents longer, and follow Monsignor Pecci, step by step, from Brussels to Rome. He had of his own free will, and at the first intimation of the reigning Pontiff's delicately expressed wish that he should accept the bishop ric offered hira, at once yielded. It was not in itself a promotion. Perugia was not an archiepiscopal see, while Monsignor Pecci was an archbishop, with only titular rank, it is true, but, bestowed on one who was beginning his regular career of nunciatures, it was sure to lead him ere long to the cardinalate. It is not going out of our way for remote or deep rea sons for the Pope's wishing the Belgian Nuncio to accept the proffered see of Perugia, to say that Gregory, aged, taught by long experience, and near his death, foresaw the fearful storms about to burst on the Pontifical States, and knew that Perugia was, on its hill-top, one of the cen tres of revolutionary activity. Both he and his sagacious Secretary of State, Cardinal Larabruschini, felt that such a raan as Monsignor Pecci was needed. To Perugia, then, he consented to go. In Belgiura, it is not too rauch to say, court, clergy, and people were filled with deep and sincere regret at the first tidings of their young Nuncio's recall. He had proved that he thoroughly understood the country and its peo ple, the political and social probleras involved in this first stage of their independent national existence, and that he was one who could sustain and promote the best of all causes without arraying against it in open warfare the angry passions of its adversaries. 126 LIFE OF LEO XIII. The king and queen, who had seen much of the Arch bishop of Damietta in the intiraacy of their private hfe, were grieved at his approaching departure as at the loss of a dear friend whose counsels had been to thera light and comfort. The ministers were even raore pained than the sovereigns. The clergy and the Catholic press of the king dora were loud in deploring the withdrawal of Monsignor Pecci as a national calamity. Leopold I. seemed unable to testify sufficiently his esteem for a man who had fulfilled his mission at the court of Brussels with such extraordinary satisfaction to all classes. He decorated him in the most solemn man ner with the Grand Cross of the order founded by himself, and wrote with his own hand to Gregory XVI. : " I feel bound to recomraend Archbishop Pecci to the kind protection of your Holiness ; he deserves it in every respect, for I have seldora seen a more uncoraraon devotion to duty, more upright intentions and straightforward con duct. His stay in this country must have enabled him to do your Holiness good service. I beg you to require him to give you an exact account of the impressions he takes away with him on Church matters in Belgium. His judg raent on all such things is very sound, and your Holiness can trust hira wholly."* The Nuncio could not have spent three years in the in timacy of Leopold I. without hearing much of his niece, Queen Victoria of England, and of her husband. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Baron Von Stockmar, who had had not a little to do with placing Leopold on the throne of Belgium, had also been instrumental in bringing about a raarriage between the Queen of England and her cousin. He had great influence in both courts, all the greater that he carefully abstained from intruding him self upon the public of either country. He had learned to prize Monsignor Pecci, and at the joint solicitation of the king and his confidential adviser the Roman prelate con sented to visit London. *MS. ARCHBISHOP PECCI IN ENGLAND. I 2 7 Of course he was warmly recomraended to the queen and her husband, and by thera was received as became one who was the friend of so dear a relative, and who had shown such extraordinary qualities in the discharge of his office under the most trying circumstances. The Anglo-Saxon race, on both hemispheres, was too important a factor in the problem of Christian civilization at its present phase not to have, long before the year 1845, fixed the attention of one so well inforraed and observant as the Joachira Pecci whose career we have been following. Ireland, for centuries kept in the twofold degradation of enforced ignorance and hopeless, helpless poverty, had, as soon as the terrible yoke was soraewhat lightened, flooded with Catholic exiles Great Britain in its length and breadth, her vast colonial empire, and that mightier empire of the United States. Everywhere the still in creasing millions of the chronically starving Celtic race at home confronted England with a stern demand for politi cal justice, and as a living assurance that, through the Irish race, Catholicisra would, in all future tirae, be coextensive with the English-speaking world. These Irish exiles in England in 1845-46 were raainly instrumental in building up and supporting the Catholic churches which began to reappear all over England, Wales, and Scotland; and in 1845 the religious world had already been startled by the issue of the Oxford movement and the Tractarian controversy. The foremost theologians and scholars of which the great Protestant university boasted had braved public opinion and renounced every worldly prospect to join the Church of Rorae. How could the Archbishop of Daraietta forego the op portunity of seeing a country where the hand of Providence was so visibly sowing the seeds of a near and raighty reli gious and political change? At the head of the clergy of his church was then a man whom he had known in Rorae — a great scholar like hiraself ; a churchraan such as Archbishop Pecci would have all those of his cloth in raodern tiraes ; foremost in all learning, secular and divine ; one looked up to I 28 LIFE OF LEO XIII. by the men of his nation ; one revered as a great teacher by the Christian world. It was consoling to confer with such a man on the religious future of England, on the providen tial mission entrusted to the down-trodden Irish race, from which Dr. Wiseman hiraself was descended. The illustrious visitor was, of course, received at the Court of St. Jaraes as the friend of the King of the Bel gians could not fail to be. A whole raonth was thus spent in England, and spent to good purpose, as subsequent events proved. The knowledge and experience derived from the spectacle of the social life of a great and free nation ; of the varied activities of the people ; of whole populations plunged in hopeless poverty, in the most degrading ignorance and 'vice, side by side with the most enormous wealth, with upper classes holding the land in their own grasp and distributing among their sons the chief offices of government as if they were an heirloom ; of a state Church splendidly endowed, and as alien to the im poverished, ignorant masses as if it and they belonged to different spheres — such contrasts and contradictions forced themselves upon the Bishop of Perugia. They were to oc cupy rauch of his thoughts during his long years of re- tireraent and study in the capital of Urabria. He was at the tirae unaware of the extrerae gravity of the illness frora which the Sovereign Pontiff, his friend and benefactor, was suffering. On his way horaeward he spent several weeks in Paris, the guest of Monsignor Fornari, and honored by Louis Philippe and his faraily, to whom the Queen of the Belgians had warraly recoraraended him.. The social, industrial, and political condition of France at that raoraent was one which might well excite alarm in the mind of one less enlightened than Monsignor Pecci, and less familiarly acquainted with the attitude and aims of great political parties, with the ambitious designs of Eu ropean courts, and with the terrible power and the well- defined plans of the secret organizations which were slowly but surely making themselves masters of Europe itself. Even as the ex-Nuncio conversed with the French king DEA TH OF GREGOR Y XVL I 2 9 and queen, absorbed at the tirae in their projects of raatri- monial alliances, their throne was like a frame dwelling in the Brazilian forests — though untouched in appearance, all eaten away secretly by white ants, and sure to collapse with the first breath of the storm. Monsignor Pecci was destined to see more of these ter rible workers. He arrived in Rome on May 22, 1846, when Gregory XVL, lying at death's door, could not read or receive the autograph letter of King Leopold. The two months spent in visiting London and Paris had a most serious influence in shaping the course of the Archbishop's after-life. Had he returned to Rome immediately on quit ting Brussels, the Pope, who so highly prized his diplo matic services, might have reconsidered and cancelled his nomination to the see of Perugia, and, even if raised to the dignity of cardinal, as requested by the King of the Bel gians and half-promised by ihe Pontiff in recalling him, Joachim Pecci could have rendered the Holy See the most iraportant services at a period when far-seeing statesraan- ship was more needed in Rome, and in Rome's represen tatives abroad, than at any period in modern history. But it is useless to speculate on what might have been. We are now in presence of a momentous change in Rorae itself. The mortal illness of Gregory XVI. filled Monsignor Pecci with deep sorrow. The firraness with which this Pontiff repressed the insurrectionary movements, at various points, of the secret societies ; the dignity with which he repelled the pretensions of the English ministers and other foreign statesraen to dictate to hira a line of policy in ad ministering the States of the Church ; and the reputation so easily created for him by the Liberal anti-Catholic press of being narrow-rainded, illiberal, intolerant, and a despot, did not affect the judgraent of those who approached him, who knew the man and the Pope in his daily life, and who could appreciate the thorough conscientiousness which. he brought to the discharge of every duty of his high office, the deep love of his country and his people which. I ^o LIFE OF LEO XIII. forraed so salient a feature of his character. Gregory XVI. had the misfortune to be the chief obstacle in Italy, in Christendom, to the revolutionary designs of the Occult Force and its allied organizations, "Young Italy" and "Young Europe." Had he been an angel of goodness it was their interest to paint him with the colors of the Pit. And they strenuously labored to do so. But Gregory XVL, as one who approached hira nearly * testifies, was, like his iraraediate predecessor, Pius VIII., one of the raost accoraphshed scholars in Europe. He was not only learned, but a generous patron of learning. His was a life of unwearied labor, self-denial, and self-sac rifice. Placed by the votes of his peers of the Sacred Col lege in the Chair of Peter, his private life was governed by the sarae simplicity and piety which had distinguished him when only a Caraaldolese recluse. Once official busi ness and the cares of his vast adrainistration left hira free at the end of his long days of toil, he was only the monk Mauro Capellari, seeking the poverty and solitude of his cell, and the presence of the God who judges popes and emperors, as He does the lowliest priest and the poorest peasant, in the scales of inexorable justice. To Cardinal Lambruschini, Gregory's great Secretary of State, and no less than his master the detestation of every secret or open conspirator. Archbishop Pecci, on his arrival in Rome, had no need to render a very long account of the mission he had fulfilled in Belgium. The secretary was well acquainted with all that had been done, and had al ready expressed his appreciation of it. But there was one among the merabers of the Sacred College assembled in Rorae in preparation for the con clave to whora the ex-Nuncio was led to open his heart. This was Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti, soon to becorae Pope Pius IX. What the latter's opinion of the Archbishop of Perugia's services at Brussels was, and what he had said to him before the conclave, was expressed anew in the very first audience after his election to the Pontificate. * See Cardinal Wiseman, " Recollections of the Four Last Popes." POPE PIUS IX. AND MONSIGNOR PECCI. 1 3 1 "We know you well," he said; "and we wish to reaffirm the pleasure we expressed to you on a former occasion about what you have accomplished in Belgium for the good of the Church." * It fell to the lot of the new Pontiff to reply to the auto graph letter of King Leopold addressed to Gregory XVI. " Monsignor Pecci, lately Nuncio near your majesty," wrote Pius IX., " has placed in our hands the precious letter which you wrote to our venerable predecessor on the 14th of May. . . . The high testimony which your majesty has pleased to render to Monsignor Pecci, Bishop of Perugia, is most honorable to that prelate, who shall in due tirae experience the effects of your royal and kindly wishes as if he had continued to fulfil to the end the course of his nunciatures." -f- The Archbishop of Perugia did not prolong his stay in Rorae rauch beyond the time necessary for completing his official account to the new Secretary of State and visiting Carpineto and the members of his family. Before, how ever, directing his steps toward Umbria, he had witnessed the exciting scenes which in Rorae followed Pius IX. 's celebrated Act of Amnesty. But he knew all classes of the citizens too well, and was too well acquainted with the plans of the Revolutionists in the Eternal City, through out the Papal States and all Italy, not to know that the * MS. : " Prima di lasciare Roma, Monsignore Pecci non aveva potwto vedere il Ponte fice che lo aveva eletto, Gregorio XVL, perch} passato a miglior ¦vita in quel giorni : ma essendo sul punto di adunarsi il Conclave voile visitare il Cardinale Mastai-Ferretti, vescovo d'Imola per fame la cono- scenza ; e ne fu accolto contralto della piii squisita e benevola cortesia, e seco lui in confidente colloquio favelld dei felici successi della sua nun- ziatura ai Selgio. Salito poco appresso Pio IX. sulla Cattedra Apostolica, lo ricevette a formale udienza con eguali sentimenti di cordiale benevo- lenza, ed ebbe a dirgli : Monsignore, ben ci conosciamo, e su quello che ella ha fatto per la Chiesa nel Belgio non abbiamo che a rinnovarle i sensi di vera com- piacenza che le esprimemmo nel nostro colloquio." We have transcribed this passage as it is in the original, the sentences in italics being exactly left as they were, to convey to the intelligent reader the meaning intended by the writer. t " Cenni Storici," i. 5. 1 32 LIFE OF LEO XIII. hymns of triumph sung to the new Pontiff always ended by a prayer which sounded very much like a menace. We must ask the reader to go back with us now to the capital of Umbria, and to learn from the most authentic sources the circumstances which led to the appointment of the Archbishop of Daraietta, still only in his thirty-sixth year, to the iraportant pastoral charge he so little ex pected. Perugia lost its bishop, Monsignor Cittadini, in April, 1845. It at once occurred to the clergy and people of the diocese that they could have no more desirable successor to their deceased prelate than the man who, during his brief sojourn among them as governor, had won such gold en opinions frora all classes, and endeared himself to the people by advancing their best interests and by the shining examples of his private life. " The city magistrates and the raost distinguished among the nobility, through the intermediary of Cardinal Mattel, the Protector of Perugia, laid their wishes before the Sovereign Pontiff, who received the petition very favor ably. Gregory XVI. was gratified to see renewed in the person of Monsignor Pecci what befell St. Ambrose, who, while governing the province of .(Emilia, was sent to pre side over the canonical election of a bishop for Milan, and was himself chosen by the people. Gregory, therefore, de clared himself ready to accede to the prayers of the Perugi- nese, provided they could obtain the assent of the prelate himself, 'who, created in 1843 Archbishop of Damietta, was then Apostolic Nuncio in Belgium.' * The latter, as well to comply with the kind intentions of the Pope as influenced by the affectionate memories and relations which bound him to Perugia, did not hesitate to change his career, and to accept this pastoral mission among a people who had for * The MS., which is here quoted, underlines this last sentence, as if it was taken from the text of the Pope's answer to the petition of the Peru- ginese. We shall see presently that Gregory XVI. did consider Mon signor Pecci's prompt obedience to his desire as an act which touched him deeply. It was sacrificing future prospects to the least wish of the Pontiff. MGR. PECCPS APPOINTMENT TO PERUGIA. 133 him so high a regard and asked so earnestly for his return to them. He was preconized * as Bishop of Perugia in the Consistory of January 19, 1846, and on July 26 following made his solemn entry into his church, according to the ritual prescribed for such occasions, and amid the general rejoicing. " Before entering Perugia, however, and taking posses sion of his see. Bishop f Pecci gave another proof of his life long devotion to St. Francis of Assisi. He made a pilgrim age to the shrine of the Umbrian saint, poured out his heart in the magnificent church of St. Mary of the Angels, within the exquisite little sanctuary of the Portiuncula,J and then tarried near the tomb of St. Francis himself in Assisi. " Another incident also serves to define the character of Joachim Pecci. He had determined to raake his entry into Perugia on July 26, the day on which the Church cele brates the feast of St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This, as we know, was the name of his own mother, so tenderly loved, so unceasingly regretted. From her he had imbibed the deep piety which he ever cherished for the parents of Her who had given birth to the Incar nate Word. It is a sentiment which the Catholic heart * " Preconizing" is the technical term for proclaiming in solemn Con sistory such episcopal appointments. \ Perugia was not then an archbishop's see. But as Monsignor Pecci was titular Archbishop of Damietta at the time of his promotion to Pe rugia, according to Roman rule he was designated as "Archbishop- Bishop ¦¦ We shall simply style him Archbishop henceforward. I The Porziuncola is so called in the history of the Franciscan Order because it was at first a ruinous iittle chapel, in the plain below Assisi, which the Benedictines offered as a free gift to St. Francis and his two first companions. The plot of ground ii covered, with the crumbling walls and roof, was thus the only portion of God's earth the Saint and his associates could call their own. There they lived during the beautiful period of their earliest growth. Later the chapel was repaired and made a sanctuary by the popular veneration. Around that little sanctuary, later still, a mag nificent cliurch was reared, called St. Mary of the Angels. But within this glorious temple, like the Ark of the Covenant in the Temple of Solomon, was preserved the Porziuncola, decorated and beautified by all the artists of Italy. 134 LIFE OF LEO XIII. in every part of the world has ever instinctively cher ished.* " There was an iraraense concourse of people ; and it was said that not less than sixty thousand persons came to Perugia from the neighboring districts and the surrounding country, lining the streets which lead from the Monastery of San Pietro to the cathedral. This happy event was also celebrated by a general illumination, and by literary acade mies vying with each other in honoring the man." Under St. Anne's protection, with the holiest filial affections of earth and heaven purifying and elevating his spirit, Joachim Pecci entered the city in which, with his whole heart and soul, he intended to do the work set before him by the Incarnate God, the great Shepherd of souls. The Perugians were impatiently expecting him. He was their own choice. He loved them and brought to thera the devotion of a whole life still in its early prime, already crowned with glorious performance and filled with the promise of many fruitful years. His welcome was an ovation — not so much one distinguished by outward display as by the outpouring of unmistakable popular joy. Dis play enough there was, assuredly ; for they thought they could not do enough for one who, during his brief stay among them, had done so much to better the condition of all classes. The streets were decorated on his passage, as if he were a royal personage whom all delighted to honor. The beautiful cathedral, which he was to beautify * In France the national sanctuary of Ste. Anne d'Aura)', near Nantes, is well known to all travellers. It has been ever specially dear to seamen. In Canada, below Quebec, on the North Shore and opposite the island of Orleans, is La Grande de Sainte Anne, scarcely less famous than the church in Brittany, and which is also a national shrine. In Youghal, Ireland, was once a Convent Church of St. Anne on the be.Tch at the entrance of the harbor, and whose tower only still remains standing. It is the lighthouse— as it ever was in medieval times, the nuns being obliged to sec that the light was alw.iys fed. It was a sanc tuary most dear to Irish seamen in Catholic times. Our New Ireland will rebuild it. HIS RE CEP TION IN PER UGIA . 1 3 5 still more, was crowded to its utraost capacity as the peo ple conducted hira in triuraph to it. There were addresses frora the civil authorities, frora the chapter and clergy, and other bodies, all heartfelt in the sentiraents they ex pressed, and to all of which the Archbishop replied in his happiest vein ; for his heart, deeply stirred by all these manifestations, went out to his people and was felt in every sentence he uttered. In the evening the entire city was illuminated ; and the country folk from far and near who had flocked in lingered lovingly around the episcopal residence to catch a glimpse of their young prelate's per son, to get his blessing or perchance a word of fatherly affection from his lips. And they were not disappointed. Who that has mingled, in the Italian cities of the north and centre at least, with the raasses of the coraraon people in street, public square, or church, on any one of those great religious celebrations which are so dear to thera, but raust remeraber with emotion how gentle, how orderly, how well-bred, and how courteous toward each other and to strangers this much maligned people are ? And who, coming from any part of the English-speaking world, and comparing the conduct of the popular raasses in his own land, on days of public festivity, with that of the Italian contadini, but must ask, " On which side is true civilization, the result of long Christian culture ? Is it not on that of the sober, peaceful, orderly, civil crowds enjoying themselves innocently?" We know what deep political passions, artfully and scientifically nursed, and let loose and directed with con- suraraate skill, characterized the popular deraonstrations in nearly all the Italian cities in the suraraer of 1846 and afterward. These passions, created and fostered for the most sacred of all earthly purposes — that of securing na tional liberty and self-government — were a force unhappily set in motion and directed against the religion and the institutions which had been, in Italy, the parent and the nurseries of Christian civilization. The cause and interests of religion, by the long and scientific education given by 136 LIFE OF LEO XIII. the Revolution to the people of the cities and towns es pecially, had been identified with what these were taught to regard as the enemy of liberty and fatherland, as the irreconcilable foe of all amelioration among the laboring masses. It was so often said, repeated, taught, taught over again, repeated, and said, by every mouth and pen and organ that could reach the popular eye, the popular ear, the pop ular heart, that, raore even than the foreign princes who owned so much of the soil of Italy and held her peoples in bondage, the Pope, the priesthood, the Church were the foes to be beaten down, crushed, and got rid of once and for ever, that many of the laboring masses in the cities began to believe it, and the middle classes, who wanted to climb over their betters into power, feigned to believe it, acted as if they did, and threw themselves furiously into the rising, swelling, rushing current of pop ular hatred, heading, guiding it, and. lashing it into fury. This the clubs of the secret societies had long been doing in Perugia, as well as elsewhere. They had hitherto done it in secret and dark places. The Amnesty of Pius IX. now gave the conspirators an opportunity to come to the surface and the open light of day. Thenceforward no earthly power could destroy thera, though it might check thera for a brief space. Who will create and organize a religious, a Christian, a conservative opinion capable of counteracting these pas sions ? Who will call into being, by teaching and example, the mighty moral forces able to confront these powers of evil, and save Christendom and society frora the chaos of anarchy toward which it is hastening ? It was, therefore, no undivided, harraonious, one-mind ed, one-hearted comraunity that the new Archbishop of Perugia was called to govern in spirituals ; for in tem porals the province was always administered by a prelate- delegate appointed by the Pope. The Archbishop, from the first day, understood exactly his position, with its perils and its duties. He had grasped A FORECAST. 137 all the eleraents of the European problem, all the ten dencies of the age, all the probabilities and possibilities of the coming era, so far as human sagacity, 'a careful observation of facts, and stud}- of principles could enable a man, brought earl\- into contact with the leaders of men and of huraan opinion, to understand the present and divine the future. He lost no tirae in doing his duty, in educating and preparing his flock to withstand the perils which beset their consciences, their homes, and their country. We shall find him instructing them diligently and solidly; creating churches and schools wherever most needed ; pro moting piety and education in every parish ; raising the standard of education in the seminaries destined for cle rical students ; renovating the great schools of superior education; lifting his eloquent voice, in pastoral letters, to protest against the outrages and injustice done to re ligion and its chief, and warning, by writings as admirable for their sound doctrine and exquisite literary forms as they are for their opportuneness, the people of Italy and all Christendora against the errors which unsettle and cor rupt men's minds in our age, and against the vices begot ten of unbelief, the unbridled love of pleasure, and the loss of faith in the eternal world with its rewards and punishments. It were hard to say which one raay praise raost in this laborious episcopate of thirty-two years in Perugia — the works accoraplished by the Archbishop to foster faith, edu cation, and piety araong his people, or the prophetic writ ings by which he taught them Christian wisdom, and with thera taught also the whole Christian world. We have now to follow hira in his labors. Part Third. JOACHIM PECCI'S GLORIOUS EPISCOPATE IN PERUGIA. 1846-187S. CHAPTER X. IN PERUGL\— PREPARING FOR THE BATTLE. — I. BY EDU CATION. * V I *S was to be expected, the Archbishop of Perugia's ^t I , first care was education. When, in the middle of the sixteenth century, St. Charles Borromeo, younger even in years than Monsignor Pecci, took possession of the see of Milan, his knowledge of the needs of his flock and of the needs of all Italy made hira devote himself to the task of organizing not only a perfect system of secular instruction, complete in all the departments of science then known, but a thorough system of religious instruction, beginning with the teaching of the catechism in every parish church, in every elementary school, and ending in the best endowed chairs of theology, canon law, philology, and hermeneutics. He found already existing, as is attested by a monu ment placed in the cathedral of Milan, a society of Chris tian Doctrine, established earlier in the century by a zeal ous priest whose prophetic mind divined the coming dangers to faith and morals, and who devoted himself, and enlisted others with him in the cause, to the labor of thoroughly grounding the children of the people in the knowledge of the Gospel truth and morality. This was also the primary object to which St. Ignatius Loyola and his first associates gave themselves up after their arrival in Italy, when the Holy See permitted them to evangelize the populations of town and country. They endeavored to make revealed truth penetrate into the popular mind by the most efficient methods ever devised by the mind of man. Not content with preaching — in language which charmed 141 142 LIFE OF LEO XIII. the raost educated by its pregnant siraplicity and entered the intelligence of the most unlearned as the light penetrates a sound eye — in the cathedrals and principal churches, they afterward went about the streets ringing a hand-bell and sumraoning all the children to catechisra. The chil dren flocked to the churches at their call, and with them carae their parents, There these men broke to the little ones of Christ's flock the bread of the divine word in such a way that not a particle fell to the ground. Thus did Francis Xavier in Rome and elsewhere ; thus did he in the capital of Portugal on his way to the East Indies ; thus did he everywhere, and almost every day, during his marvellous raissionary labors in the East. Bell in hand, he would pass through the streets of the pagan cities and summon the little children to follow him and listen to the word of God. And, as if the bell were some magic instrument which com pelled their wills to follow the great modern apostle, they trooped after him to be enlightened and to be baptized, they and their parents with thera. Read his method of catechising, and see if anything can be more admirable, more effective in captivating the intelligence and the heart, when wielded by a man or a woman whose soul is earnest in the work of God. This St. Charles Borromeo saw carried out in Rome by the brethxcw of Xavier, and this he carried out himself in the vast diocese of Milan. This his cousin and successor. Archbishop Frederick Borromeo, embodied in his wonder ful Confraternities of Christian Doctrine, which soon ex tended to all Italy. This is what Italy most needed in 1846 and the terrible years which followed. This is what she most needs to-day, January i, 1887. Archbishop Pecci was too enlightened, too sagacious, too practical not to have perceived, ere taking charge of the diocese of Perugia, that such was also the need of the Italian populations — a need made all the more imperative by the propaganda of irreligious, iramoral, and revolution ary teachings and principles which found means, through THE TRUE NEED OF ITAL Y IN 1S46. 143 the secret agencies of the " clubs," to disseminate their prints among all who could read, to inoculate with their venom the minds and hearts of those who could not. No amount of vigilance on the part of the authorities availed to check the spread of this'pestilential apostleship of irre ligion and revolt. The sacred words of country, nationality, independence, and Italian unity were the spell-words used by these ubi quitous and sleepless agents of what was upheld as the cause of the people to catch the ear, raove the heart, and enlist the sympathy of the popular masses, especially in the cities. The growing mischief and the raighty influence of all these admirably organized agencies could only be counter acted by another apostleship — one combining the earnest ness, the spirit of self-sacrifice, the devotion to God and God's people which distinguished the first preachers of the Gospel in Imperial Rome and Italy, with the knowledge of the present needs and dangers of the country, and the sci entific skill to raeet and vanquish in intellectual conflict all the eneraies of revelation, who were also the eneraies of the faith professed by the Italian people. Nothing could withstand, baffle, and beat back the wide-spread and well-disciplined forces of Unbelief — who, unfortunately, won their successes in the name of patri otism and Italy — but a clergy fully alive to the dangers and responsibilities of the situation, and fully equipped with the best weapons for the contest ; who had, mar shalled behind them, partaking of the ardor, the convic tions, the knowledge, and the skill of their leaders, the popular masses in city and country. The people of Italy, it was already evident in 1846, would be lost to religion, and won over, by force, by per suasion, by seduction, by sympathy, to the cause of the Revolution holding aloft the banner of nationality, if the clergy did not hasten to make the people understand that religion never had stood and never could stand in the way of Italy's true freedom or national interests. 1 44 LIFE OF LEO XIII. At any rate, the people had to be thoroughly grounded in religious knowledge and in the faithful practice of Chris tian morality, if they were to be saved from all the mani fold influences of evil to which they were exposed even then, and which succeeding political events were so to in tensify and complicate as to baffle the previsions of all human forethought. Monsignor Pecci's first care in Perugia was to make every possible provision for the education of his clergy in the first place, then for that of the upper classes ; know ing, as he did, that education, like all raighty influences for good or evil, spreads frora above downward, from the lead ing classes to the masses of the people. Indeed, from his first taking possession of his episcopal see his keen, prac tised eye took in the condition of education among all ranks of his people. And if we mention before all else his labors in behalf of his ecclesiastical and university schools, it is to deal with the subject in logical order much more than in the order of time. We here quote frora our raanuscript : " No praise can do justice to the earnest zeal which he displayed for the diffusion of Christian knowledge and for spreading religious instruction among the people. He pro moted this great object by the work of raissions, by spiri tual exercises, by the teaching of catechism, by the solemn festivities of First Coraraunion celebrations, by the estab lishment of Christian Doctrine Societies. " The text of the Diocesan Catechisra, which he re cast and reproduced in a number of editions ; the episco pal decrees and ordinances which he published for regu lating in all the parishes of his charge the explanation of the Gospel and of the letter of the Catechism ; and the collection of learned and practical pastoral letters which he annually addressed to his diocesans, especially for the Lenten season, all bear witness to the wonderful zeal which he felt for the spiritual welfare of his people, and to the in tense desire he had to m&intain in its integrity and purity their baptismal faith." THE DIOCESA N SEMINA RY. 1 4 5 After the Piedmontese occupation of Urabria and " the dispersion of the Monastic Orders, he saw that there would be among the people a dearth of spiritual food on account of the loss of so many preachers. Wherefore, in 1875, he founded a Union of Preachers of the Word of God, whose object was to extend the benefits of religious instruction to the various classes and quarters of the city and diocese, together with missions, spiritual retreats, catechistical lessons, First Communions ; for all which sa cred ministrations he had in 1873 established admirable rules, in order to surround them with greater solemnity, to make thera raore fruitful and more edifying in the city parishes. " Moreover, he decreed, after consulting with the parish priests and rectors, a fixed regulation for divine services throughout the city. There were to be stated hours for these and for serraons on feast-days, so that the people of every quarter could at every hour have the utmost facility for attending to their duties and profiting by the instruc tions given. In this sarae year of 1872, as well as by an other rule promulgated in 1875, he strongly urged all par ish priests and their assistants not to desist from teaching the Christian Doctrine to children, and to have Catechisra classes in the afternoon for adults." The Diocesan Serainary, as being the nursery of the local priesthood, naturally obtained an unusual araount of care. " He was wont to call it the apple of his eye." * It had been founded in 1571 by Cardinal Fulvio della Corgna, Bishop of Perugia, and had also been an object of special solicitude to Bishop Napoleone Comitali, one of Monsignor Pecci's iraraediate predecessors. The Serainary was close by the episcopal palace, and the new prelate conceived at once the design of enlarging the edifice by uniting it with the episcopal residence and giving up to the Seminary the wing which adjoined it. It was a generous conception. But Monsignor Pecci went further, for between 1846 and 1850 he spent six thousand Roman crowns of his own *MS. Door of the Municipal Haul, Cathedral Square Perugia. 146 HIS LOVE OF ORDER, DISCIPLINE, AND CULTURE. 1 47 money — and he was not rich — in making all these changes and improvements. " At the same time," the raanuscript goes on to say, " his principal attention was bestowed on raising the standard of education in the establishraent by creating new professor ships and appointing to thera the best men he could find. Nothing was spared by hira that could help to make the zeal for study flourish in the schools, so that the Seminary of Perugia should enjoy the greatest possible fame in Um bria and the neighboring provinces." * The mind of the Archbishop-Bishop of Perugia had been from his early years too thoroughly disciplined, and his whole life, even at that time, was too well ordered, that he should not value discipline and perfect order in his great schools, and insist upon their observance by both professors and pupils. His object in incorporating the Seminary buildings with his own residence was to have the institution and the great work it was doing under his own eye day and night. The pride of the gardener is to see every plant in his nursery thrive and grow, every flowering shrub covered with the loveliest blossoms of spring, every fruit-tree bearing the ripening proraise of golden autumn. And the gardener's joy is to see tree and shrub and flower responding to his careful and loving husbandry. It seeraed to be Archbishop Pecci's dearest delight to be among these young plants of the sanctuary, or to watch the habits and growth of each, as if it were indeed the apple of his eye. If he had it at heart that the pupils, all through their classic, scientific, and theological courses, should derive as much benefit as possible from the lessons of their accomplished masters, he was equally anxious that these should omit no pains to make their teaching perfect. They were to be well prepared and punctual in their at tendance. The Archbishop, although trusting to the su periors and directors in the discharge of their respective duties, and exacting a full and minute account of the pro- *MS. 148 LIEE OF LEO XIII. gress made in each department, would not throw upon any one the duty of securing, both in professors and scholars, a careful fulfilment of their allotted tasks. He could be expected in the schools at any raoraent, never giving notice of his coraing, but entering quietly in the midst of a lec ture or recitation, seating hiraself without exciting observa tion, and listening attentively to the proceedings of the class. Both raaster and pupils were sure to profit by these un expected visits. He knew how to convey to both, with equal tact and delicacy, whatever defects he had noticed, as well as to praise and encourage what was meritorious. It is a rare gift in a superior, that of bestowing aright the due meed of blame or praise. One anecdote in this relation paints Monsignor Pecci's character and habits to the life. It is told by Professor Geroraia Brunelli : " Neither my scholars nor myself," he says, " are likely ever to forget a remarkable incident connected with Car dinal Pecci. ... I do not know how it happened, but one day I failed to be in my place at the appointed hour in my school of Belles-Lettres. Hastening to repair the delay, with the trepidation of a man who knew that the most likely thing in the world was to meet the Cardinal in the corridor of the college, watchful over the silence and order to be kept there, what was my astonishment, when enter ing the school without any previous knowledge of the fact, to see the Cardinal seated in ray chair and translating for the benefit of my rapt scholars a passage from Cicero's ' Pro Milone,' making them feel and admire, in his own ele gant language and with his fine taste, the hidden beauties of the Roman orator's composition and diction ! " Confused at first, but taking courage presently, I sat down on the benches among the pupils, and begged the Cardinal to condescend to continue his lesson. But he left the chair, inviting me graciously to occupy it, and impress ing on his young hearers the iraportance of gathering all the fruit they could from their studies. Perhaps in the STRONG AND CAREFUL CUL TURE. 1 49 smile which lit up his countenance he conveyed to the pro fessor a silent but pleasant reproof." * Of course such a man would insist upon testing solidly the quality of the teaching in college and theological semi nary, as well as the application of the students, by severe quarterly examinations. He never failed to be present at these, and to be himself one of the examiners. At the end of each scholar-year he raade it a rule to have Acaderaies, to which the most cultivated citizens were invited, and in which the students had to read or declaim compositions of their own as specimens of the culture they had received during the year. All this was after the raodel of the strong and careful culture which he had himself received at the hands of the Jesuits. From their method, too, he borrowed the admi rable practice of having the students in Philosophy and Divinity sustain yearly, and particularly at the end of each of the philosophical and theological curriculums, a great public act erabracing all the raatters taught. Such a dis tinction is one that raust ever be highly prized and much sought for; the prospect of it is a great stimulus to the noblest intellectual ambition. Archbishop Pecci gave the utraost soleranity and eclat to these scholastic celebrations and assemblages. The neighboring bishops, Roman prelates faraed for their learn ing, the foremost theologians and scientists in Umbria, all that was distinguished for rank or culture, were invited, and deemed it an honor to encourage by their presence these feasts of the intellect. It was while he was thus perfecting everything connect ed with lay and clerical education in his diocese and through out Umbria that he began to call public attention to the scientific method of that greatest of Italian scholars, St. Thomas Aquinas, who is in truth the greatest luminary of the Catholic Church. His careful philosophical and theological training in the * Prolusione letta dal Brunelli per I'anno scolastico 1878-79, e pub- blicatanella "LeonisXIII. Pont. Max. Carmina," Udine, 1883. ISO LIFE OF LEO XIII. Collegio Romano, where, as the Jesuits are enjoined by their founder, the works and raethod of St. Thomas are made the basis of the entire curriculum of Philosophy and Divinity, had filled Monsignor Pecci with a great admira tion for him who is known in the Church as the " Angelic Doctor." In truth, it is impossible to find any intellectual method better fitted, in imparting or acquiring a scientific know ledge of the entire system- of Revealed Truth, to place before the mind, side by side, both the errors which are opposed to the various doctrines of Revelation and these doctrines themselves stated in all their native simphcity and supported by every argument which can help to eluci date and convince. In St. Thomas's great " Surama Theo- logis," and in his wonderful philosophical " Summa contra Gentiles," every objection ever devised against Revelation as a whole, its separate parts, or the solid array of evidence which natural reason brings to its support, is stated clearly, fairly. Before each proposition embodying a particular theological truth, as before some outwork about to be car ried by storm, these objections, gathered frora pagan and Christian times, are arrayed in regular order. Each one is heard, discussed, disposed of before the particular doctrine itself is formulated, analyzed, and demonstrated. In the schools this method imposes on the professor a large and liberal view of the dogma under discussion ; it supposes that he has gone round and round the truth, and surveyed it in all its bearings, and that he can guide his hearers in a like survey of the majestic edifice as a whole and in its minutest details. It imposes on the student — who has to attack and defend, by turns, the propositions of Christian theology or philosophy, as the case may be — a like thorough study of both sides in every question. This raethod of investigation and discussion in use in the great Catholic university schools is necessarily productive of large-mindedness, for it compels the deepest and widest study of all departments of huraan knowledge. And it begets, at the sarae time, that liberal and tolerant temper THE "ACADEMY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS." 151 arising from a scientific knowledge of Revealed Truth, from an enlightened and firm conviction of its divine origin and of its unspeakable benefits to mankind, but arising as well frora a clear perception of the limits, on every subject, of the truth demonstrated, and a calm tolerance of the doubts and objections created by seeming contradictions and by the vast region of speculation and probability lying outside what is certain or defined as of faith. These were the large and sure methods which Mon signor Pecci labored, and not without success, to intro duce, familiarize, and develop in the great clerical schools. To encourage all who had at heart the progress of a Chris tian philosophy based on these raethods, he drew up in 1858 a constitution and rules for an Acaderay of St. Thoraas Aquinas which was to extend its benefits to the whole of Urabria. The events which convulsed all Italy in 1859, ^^'^ the Piedraontese invasion of i860, prevented Cardinal Pecci frora carrying out his design. This could only be done in 1872, when the Academy was instituted and limited in its merabership to the sole diocese of Pe rugia. The constitution and rules were modified to raeet the altered circumstances of the times and country. It was described by the founder as " a union of priests, hav ing for its purpose the study of the works of the Angelic Doctor." The precedent was a noble one, and was prompt ly imitated in Spain and Italy. It was also copied in other countries of Christendom when Cardinal Pecci, become Leo XIIL, raade the philosophical raethod of St. Thoraas the guide of all Catholic teachers. The Sixth Centenary of St. Thoraas, occurring, as it did, in 1874, gave a fresh irapulse to the Perugian Acaderay, -ivhich that year issued the first volurae of its " Scientific Transactions." This publication and those which have since followed gave consoling evidence of the high culture which the great prelate's efforts and exaraple had intro duced araong his clergy.* * These "Transactions" were published by Santucci, of Perugia. We can form some estimate of the scientific and practical value of the labors 152 LIFE OF LEO XIII. Thus labored he to raise high the level of the truest science in the souls of those who were soon to become the teachers of his flock, the bright lights of the Church of Perugia. But he was far more anxious and labored far more strenuously to raise higher still in these same chosen souls the level of sanctity. For they were to be guides of the people in all goodness and purity ; and their lives were to mirror forth to Italians in the dark and troublous times which were swiftly coming on the land the virtues without which Christianity could not live in the country where Peter and Paul had labored and died, the country of St. Gregory and St. Leo, of Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas, of Dante and Tasso, and of Christopher Columbus. To return to the subject of education, his solicitude for the observance of strict discipline in all his schools was only a part of his endeavor to proraote and secure the highest degree of excellence. He was very particiilar in support ing the authority of both directors and professors, know ing, as he did by experience, that without authority there can be no discipline, and without discipline no education. But in his seminaries a severe discipline, to be what it ought to be — a willing, loving, conscientious compliance with rules — must proceed from higher motives than mere outward respect for superiors or a decent submission to a necessary order of things. The discipline of a seminary, a training-school for the priesthood, must be founded on the spirit of self-denial practised in the preparatory stage by men whose lives, to be worthy of their calling, must be one long self-sacrifice. of the academicians by naming the foreraost of the matters treated. There is an " Essay on Anthropological Investigations in accordance with the Prin ciples of St. Thomas." This is dedicated to the Angelic Doctor on the re currence of his Sixth Centenary, 1874 (vol. i.) In this first volume are the constitution and rules of the Academy itself. In 1878 the second volume was published. This contains " Discussions of the Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas of Perugia.'' Cardinal Pecci's purpose was to demonstrate that all the discoveries and investigations of the ripest and raost careful modern science could and should be examined and judged in the light of the sound Christian philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 153 It was one of the most admirable features in the life of the Cardinal Archbishop of Perugia that he made it both a pleasure and a duty to mingle with his seminarians in their daily and weekl)- devotions, especially in the solemn exercises of their annual spiritual retreat,* which have such wonderful efficacy in purifying men's souls, in lifting them to God and setting them well forward on the road to all self-denial. " He knew well what a delicate and difficult thing it is to give the souls of the young a right direction — of the young espdtially who aspire to the service of the sanc tuary. To make sure of this he took every pains to have them frora their earliest years solidly grounded in piety, in that huraility which accepts the rules of discipline willingly, and in that practice of recollectedness which springs frora both. He was extreraely jealous of having the discipli nary rules in both college school and theological seminary strictly observed. This it was that often brought him into the corridors, into the recreation-halls, and into the chapel. " He placed at the head ot the Seminary well-known and prudent men, raen of approved virtue, frora whom he wished to receive daily reports. He frequently admitted the seminarians to his presence, and always showed them great affection in order to win their confidence and give thera good counsel. " On the other hand, he knew how to temper this kind ness with a just severity toward such as showed them selves indocile and fractious. But he was careful not to use toward them anything like harsh words or bitter reproofs, * A "Spiritual Retreat " is a recess of eight or ten days, given, gene- ally under the direction of a priest of superior virtue and learning, to the meditation of the Eternal Truths — the Destiny of Man, Heaven, Hell, Sin, Judgraent — the raeditation of the Mysteries of Christ's Life, and all the duties of the Christian man, the priest, and the apostle. The little book of ' Spiritual Exercises " composed by St. Ignatius Loyola was the text used by his companions in the sixteenth century to work the wonderful change they effected in Europe as well as in the East Indies and America. Since their time the custom of these yearly Spiritual Retreats or Revivals has be come general in all Catholic lands. 154 LIFE OF LEO XIII. which only irritate the ill-disposed and drive them to ex tremities. He reserved to himself the treatment of the most stubborn cases. . . . " It was his habit twice or thrice a week to go to a room specially reserved for him, during the study-hours, and to send for such of the young men as the rector con sidered to be disobedient or disedifying. There, all alone with each culprit, the Cardinal, with words which united real affection with fatherly severity,, told him that he felt himself obliged to tell him that he must correct himself. To render this admonition raore effective he Tisually gave to each of these thus sent for a sheet written by himself and containing, side by side, the faults and defects which it was indispensable to get rid of, as well as the most efficacious means of overcoming them. He insisted that this sheet should remain on the student's table, so as to be continually under his eyes as a reminder. " This method produced the most excellent results; the most headlong, undisciplined, and passionate were known to change totally for the better. The Cardinal recom mended above all things the spirit of obedience, of docil ity, and the resolute will to subdue self-love and pride, the twin-sources of moral disorder. " Then, to plant these practical virtues still deeper in the souls of his seminarians, he wrote and published a little book on ' Humility,' which he dedicated to them, and in which he sets forth the means of acquiring this raost nec essary of all virtues in the priest, the one which should be his distinctive characteristic." * Was all this careful husbandry, with its unceasing labor of love during thirty-two years, rewarded by abundant and worthy fruit ? Yes. Cardinal Pecci " had the sweet con solation of forming in his Seminary not a few churchmen worthy of such culture, and who at this day fill high posi tions and offices of great trust, whether as pastors of souls or as professors, and who are justly regarded as the honor * MS. This work was published in Perugia in 1871, and republished in Lucca in 1SS2. THE ARCHBISHOP'S HUSBANDR Y RE WARDED. I 5 5 of the Church of Perugia. Among many which might here be mentioned it will be sufficient to name Monsignor Ro- telli, formerly Bishop of Alontefiascone and now Delegate Apostolic in Constantinople, and Monsignor Boccali, the Pope's special auditor or judge; besides the two brothers the Professors Satolli, Professor Monsignor Ballerini, Pro fessor Brunelli, the Archpriest Boschi, the Archdeacon Sal- vatorelli, and the two Canons Carnicchi. " We could say much about the watchful solicitude with which he ever attended to the interests of the Semi nary, and of the great expense he incurred in improving it materially and in financial management, especially after the losses and the disasters occasioned by the converting of the patrimonial property of the establishraent into gov ernment funds. At first he alone had to support the schools and pay the board of poor scholars, to keep the house in provisions in seasons of distress, to meet all the expenses of repairs and improvements, to provide all kinds of school furniture ; so that it can truly be said that his forethought and generosity alone saved the establishraent, after the conversion just mentioned, from the greatest dis asters, not to say certain ruin. " In fine, people were forced to admire the practical good sense and judgment displayed by him in 1872 when the governraent issued their Programmes of Studies. He had the tact to draw up a plan and rules of direction for the Serainary, erabracing all the new subject-raatters to be taught and the discipline enjoined, in such a manner as not to imperil the solidity and seriousness of the old curriculum, which had given so many distinguished raen to the Church and to lay professions. At the same tirae he was careful that his serainarians should get full instruc tion on all the subjects required by government examiners of candidates for academical degrees." * * MS. With the approbation of the Cardinal Bishop, they printed in 1872 the " Normal Programme of Studies in the Episcopal Seminary of Perugia." This was signed by the prefect of studies, Canon Luigi Ro- telli, D.D. ; it was that drawn up by the Cardinal. CHAPTER XI. PREPARING FOR THE BATTLE — II. TRAINING HIS CLERGY: LEADING THEM IN THE PATHS OF SANCTITY. aAREFUL as Archbishop Pecci was of the training of his seminarians — the candidates for the priest hood — he was, if possible, more so for the advancement of his priests in all knowledge and holiness. This was the double armor which alone could protect them and render them invincible in the long and relentless warfare begun against the Church, religion, and society. While, there fore, following with unwearied watchfulness the progress in clerical life and learning of every one of his semina rians, both in the college school and in the philosophical and theological department, he omitted no pains to ascer tain how it stood with every one of his priests both as to intellectual acquirements and as to raoral conduct and edi fication of life. We raust not weary the reader by repeating it, but it is none the less true that Monsignor Pecci felt, on taking charge of his diocese, like a general sent to defend a central position in a country threatened with invasion, with a for midable hostile force massed on the frontiers, and secret allies within the land ready to co-operate with the foe. It behooved him, therefore, to look well to his own means of resistance, to inspect the forces at his comraand, and to examine their state of efficiency. It may be said here that his long episcopate of upwards of thirty-one years in Perugia was one continuous effort to hft his priests up to the sublime height of intellectual and spiritual perfection demanded by their calling, and more particulariy required by the crisis through which are pass ing, at the present time, all the institutions of Christianity. 156 SECOND EDUCA TION OF THE CLERGY. 157 Let us listen to one who had the privilege of being both an eye-witness of these episcopal labors and a sharer in the Archbishop of Perugia's admirable system of educa tion, as regarded both seminarians and priests engaged in the rainistry. " Every year he never failed to have several courses of spiritual exercises given to his priests, so that every three years all the members of his clergy, rectors, confessors, and simple priests, could in their turn enjoy the benefit of this holy repose. He restored by reiterated ordinances the practice of holding monthly conferences for the solution of questions or ' cases ' of raoral theology. He presided in person over those held in the city of Perugia. Else where in the diocese these conferences were presided over by the local dignitaries. . . . In 185 1 he published an ordi nance with wise regulations concerning all clerical students living outside of the Serainary. He selected one of his oldest and best priests to be their iraraediate superior and to watch over their conduct. In 1856 he published the Diocesan Catechisra, to which he added, instructions replete with practical wisdora and exhortations to parish priests on the teaching of Christian Doctrine. In 1857 he had printed a precious ' Manual of Practical Rules,' addressed to the parochial clergy, as a guide in all external disci pline and the exercise of their ministry. " For the greater facility of catechising little children on all holydays, and to keep thera away frora all dan gerous amuseraents, he established, in 1858, under the direction of the Oratorians, and with the help of the younger clergy, catechisra classes. "In 1859 he inaugurated the Scientific Acaderay of St. Thoraas Aquinas, in order chiefly to impel the clergy to cultivate the higher studies and the scholastic philosophy and theology. " To prevent abuses and profanations in the functions of the public worship on the occasion of the political re volution with its changes, he issued in 1861 an injunction to his clergy recalling the obligation of following to the 1^8 ' LIFE OF LEO XIII. letter the prescriptions of the liturgy for all extraordinary ceremonies and the internal regulation of their churches. " In 1863 he sanctioned the establishraent of the Con ferences of St. Vincent of Paul for all his priests, and ap proved the rules of the sarae. In 1866 a circular addressed to them laid down the line of conduct they had to follow in the midst of the sad circumstances of their country, so as not to depart /rom the dictates of evangehcal prudence and priestly moderation. " As soon as the law on railitary conscription was pub lished, in 1869, he employed all his zeal and industry in purchasing the liberty of the poorer clerical students draft ed, establishing a comraission for that object, and appeal ing, not without success, to the charity of his people for the same purpose. " The confiscation by the state of all Church property and revenues having reduced a multitude of priests to great poverty, the Cardinal, in 1873, founded the Society of St. Joachim, as a mutual relief association for the benefit of indigent and infirm priests. "In 1875, feeling keenly the great gaps created in the ranks of the active priesthood by the dispersion of the regular clergy, he founded the Pious Union of Preachers for the better diffusion of Christian instruction among the city population and the country parishes. Missions, pious ex ercises, catechistical explanations. First Communions— for all of which he had made special rules in 1873 — were once more urged by hira as the great raeans of breaking to the people the word of God, and a greater degree of solemnity was given to them everywhere in order to make them more attractive and more fruitful. "Already in 1872 he had, in accord with the city rec tors and parish priests, established for all the churches of Perugia a fixed time-table regulating the hours for Mass and all other divine offices, for preaching, catechism, etc., so that on every Sunday and holyday the people of the neighboring districts should have all facility for fulfilling their religious duties and satisfying their piety. In 1872, Cathedral Square, Perugia, Showing the Great FoyNTAiN, the Municipal Hall on the Left and the Cathedral on the Right, where Leo XIII. was Bishop for Thirtv-two Years. 1 6o LIEE OF LEO XIII. as well as by his ordinance of 1875, he urged upon all parish priests and chaplains the necessity of being un wearied in the labor of catechising the little children in the forenoon of Sundays and holydays, and the adults in the afternoon. "When, in 1877, the government enacted the law of obligatory instruction, one of the articles of which, with well-calculated purpose, forbade the teaching of cate chisra in the schools. Cardinal Pecci made a fervent ap peal to his clergy, pointing out to them the way in which they should act in order to supplement this fun damental defect — that is, by a more general and unceas ing use of all raeans and opportunities to impart religious instruction, and a prudent co-operation to that effect with the teachers of elementary schools. He laid down for that purpose wise practical rules, all bearing the impress of the most enlightened pastoral zeal. " We ought not here to pass over in silence his watch ful solicitude with regard to the external conduct of his clergy. In his pastoral visitations he was always extremely respectful and courteous toward those hard-working priests. Still, he would not hesitate to reprove them with fatherly frankness and affection if he found them faulty or slothful ; he would cheer and praise thera when he saw they were zealous and exemplary. As to the parish priests recently appointed, in order that they should not get discouraged in the work of their mission, rendered such a difficult one by the political changes, he summed up in their behalf, in a special pastoral letter, the raost salutary advice and pre cious reminders furnished by his long experience. These he reduced to three points, priestly spirit, an exemplary life, and priestly knowledge, under which heads he gath ered together the obligations and prerogatives of a good pastor. " Lastly, a word must be said of the beautiful order and discipline which he caused to prevail in the celebrations in his cathedral church. He was always on the best of terms with the chapter. Hence in performing his regular pas- ARCHBISHOP PECCrs LABORS AND HABITS. 1 6 1 toral visitations, and on extraordinary occasions, he found the canons raost ready and generous in providing all that was needful for the well-ordering of the cathedral clergy, for the exact regulating of the Psalraody, and all that could contribute to the splendor of divine worship and to the repairs and decoration of the great temple itself. " No wonder, therefore, that both Umbrians and for eigners, on assisting there at divine service, were wont to express their adrairation not only at the rare architecture and precious raaterials of the edifice, but at the concourse of worshippers and the solemn order of the sacred func tions." This is a bird's-eye view of the Archbishop's labors. Before dwelling more at length on some points indicated in the above sumraary, the reader will be glad to pause and consider how the private life of so great a teacher corre sponded with what he exacted of others. He was simple in his habits, indefatigably laborious ira the employraent of his time, as eager and as keen as any young .student for the acquisition of new stores of knowl edge, blaraeless and most exemplary in his private life, andi ever accessible to priests and to people, to high and lowly who required his ministry. Firra, calra, and unmoved as an; antique statue in presence of the persecutors of his clergy and the perverters of his flock when they threatened himi or atterapted to browbeat or to overawe him, his words- could be words of living flame when kindled by the wrong done to others. The Piedmontese authorities had soon found out that Cardinal Pecci was not one that they could intimidate or circumvent, or draw into the doing of a single deed or the utterance of a single word which could be construed by the most unscrupulous of them into anything that seemed like concession or compromise or compliance. In their con tests with him they were always baffled ; for he was one who studied to be in the right, and who made sure that his adversaries were in the wrong. They learned, at thein- cost, the wisdom of letting him 3i\ms&.. 1 52 LIFE OF LEO XIII. His learning, joined to a conscience of extreme sensi tiveness, never allowed him to yield to any of the snares laid for him by raen who sought to buy acts of toleration or kindness to the suffering clergy and people of Perugia by sorae slight advance to the ruling powers or some act of deference which raight bear the seeming of acknowledging their rightful sway. They were the mightful, not the right ful, masters in Umbria. He did not by word or act of his sanction their presence or their pretensions. But he did not provoke them. His dignified courtesy, even when his words conveyed a refusal and a rebuke, inspired respect or calmed irritation. Such as we have described him, such he wished his priests to be — men of God, His worthy ministers ; to be looked up to by all, to be looked down on by none. In 1866, after six years of Piedmontese misrule and of trials the bitterness of which no words can describe. Car dinal Pecci found it necessary to relieve his own heart by laying down for his faithful priests such coraraon rules of conduct as might guide them safely through the difficulties .and perils that were thickening around them. 1866 for Italy and for the Church was a memorable year. It was that in which the French garrison was with drawn from Rorae, and the Pope was left to his own re- ;Sfflurces to create an array to raaintain order within the provinces still left to him. But we all know at present ithat the famous September Convention between Napoleon .'HI. aad Victor Eraraanuel covered only a skilfully devised iplan, aa the part of the latter at least, to enable him to .possess himself of Rome at the first opportunity. It was /for his ministers and allies to create it. On June 29 also they celebrated in Rome the eight- 'centh centenary of the martyrdom there of SS. Peter and Paul It was a glorious solemnity ; but the bishops who xame to ,the Eternal City frora every shore, and the laity who flocked thither after their bishops, were, during the celebration, like children in the house of a parent suffer ing the keenest .affliction. Their joy was terapered by RULES OF CONDUCT FOR HIS PRIESTS. 163 unspeakable sadness ; their rejoicing was mingled with tears. Mazzini and Garibaldi had both issued their manifes toes, and both clamored for the possession of Rorae and the extirpation of priests and Papacy. So there was in the portions of the Peninsula already subject to the Piedraon tese rule a renewal of the worst outrages against religion, of the worst oppression against the priesthood, even though some of the exiled bishops were allowed to return. In the former States of the Church the position of the clergy be came daily more and raore intolerable, the moral pressure put upon thera to side with the Revolution being like the torture inflicted forraerly on prisoners subjected to the "question": huraan endurance was tested to its utmost limits. This was raore particularly the case in the Umbrian provinces, on account of their proximity to Rome and the close bond which had so long united the people to the Holy See. It was in these circumstances that Cardinal Pecci ad dressed himself to his dear fellow laborers. Dear they were indeed to their hard-working and devoted chief, who had taken such unceasing pains in forming by word and example the young among them, and in stimulating and encouraging the holy ambition of their elders. " No matter how rauch difficulties and dangers multi ply in our path from day to day," he says, " a true and fervent priest raust not on that account lose his way, nor fail to perforra his duties, nor pause frora the fulfilraent of his spiritual raission for the welfare and salvation of the human family and the maintenance of that holy religion of which he is the herald and minister. For it is in labors and trials that priestly virtue waxes strong and gets puri fied ; the blessed and all-restoring action of his divine min istry shines forth raore resplendently in times of great need and amid social revolutions and transformations." The terrible changes to which Italy is subjected happen, the Cardinal says, by the perraission of Hira who is the 1 64 LIFE OF LEO XIII. Eternal Pontiff and the Suprerae Ruler of the universe. It is frora Him that the priest must seek for light and aid amid the darkness and the throes of the earthquake. In that light it behooves the rainister of God to raeditate on his own imperfections and to cherish a spirit of humility and compunction. He then holds up to his priests, as a summary of all the virtues which present circurastances deraand that they should practise in a raore perfect manner, the admonition of St. Paul to Titus : " In all things show thyself an example of good works, in doctrine, in integrity, in gravity, the sound word that cannot be blamed." * " An exemplary and laborious life," the Cardinal goes on to say, " a life animated by the spirit of charity and guided by the dictates of evangelical prudence; a life of sacrifice and fatigue, spent in doing good to others, consuraed in the midst of the world for no earthly views or transitory reward ; and that frank, noble, and powerful language, the sound word that cannot be blamed, which confounds huraan contradiction, appeases the old hatred of the world, and wins even the respect and esteem of our adversaries themselves. At all times it is the sacred duty of the man who dedicates his life to the sanctuary to make himself the living and visible rairror of good example ; but this is sovereignly necessary when social commotions place God's minister on rough and slippery ground where he raay raeet at every step snares and pitfalls." And so the wise guide of the Perugian and Umbrian clergy continues to hold up the lamp before his followers in the priesthood. They must be learned. In our day " it is strictly the charge of the priest to defend doctrine assailed, morality perverted, justice ignored. He must stand like a wall of brass in the path of inundating error and heresy spreading like a pestilence." His luminous words point out to the preachers of God's word what are the things on which their doctrine can be, in our day, bestowed to the best advantage: the teach ing and training of the young, in which " their solicitude * Titus ii. 7, 8. THE PATH TO BE FOLLOWED BY THE CLERGY. 165 should be industrious and indefatigable " ; the careful and regular preparation of their Gospel lessons for the people, " and the scrupulous development of the maxims of sound morality." As to religion itself, the preacher raust insist on a luminous exposition of her divine prerogatives, her extraordinary and lasting services to mankind, in every condition of society and under every aspect, especially in what pertains to true civilization and real progress. So on the other heads of his instruction the same fatherly and experienced hand marks out the line of con duct to be followed by the priest. Beautiful are his words on the " raoral integrity " which should ever adorn the priestly character. " The moral conduct of the priest is the mirror into which the people look to find a model for their own demeanor. . . . Every shadow, every stain is re marked by the vulgar eye ; and the mere shadow is enough to make the people lose their esteem of priestly worth. . . . It is impossible that a priest who lays himself open to such reproaches or suspicions, who has the name of being self indulgent, interested, and of irregular life, should give forth that fragrance of a pure life, ' that sweet odor of Christ,' which witnesses to our worth and to our doctrine, as weU in the estimation of those who are saved as in that of those who perish." " Behold," he says in concluding, " the path which, ac cording to ray judgraent, should be followed by the clergy in our age. This path will lead them to the sure attain ment of the two great raeans which the Divine Master declares to be indispensable in our holy rainistry — holiness and knowledge. Let every priest be by his example a pure and brilliant light, let him be by his teaching the salt of the earth, and no difficulties can prevent his fulfilling his ministry of reparation." * Now let us see how, when the conflict came, the Arch bishop of Perugia could wisely direct his clergy and pro tect their dearest interests. It is a page of history but Httle known outside of Italy and deserving of everlasting remerabrance. * "Scelta," pp. iog-ii6. CHAPTER XII. HOW CARDINAL PECCI LED HIS BROTHER BISHOPS TO THE BATTLE. — III. DEFENDING AND DIRECTING THE CLERGY IN THE BATTLE. ON September the 24th, 1869, Cardinal Pecci ad dressed to his diocesans a touching pastoral let ter on the " Redeeming poor Clerical Students from the Military Conscription." It was a delicate, almost a danger ous, subject to write upon. But there was an imperative need of filling up, in the ranks of the Umbrian clergy, the great gaps made by the suppression and banishraent * of the priests belonging to the raonastic orders, as well as the yearly voids left by the conscription law and the sad fall ing off in the number of seminarians and candidates for Holy Orders. In a circular to the clergy of October 22 following the Cardinal designates with graphic touch the working of that law as " the pitiless axe laid at the roots of the Church's nursery." f It was striking the tree of the priesthood in its very roots, and with the priest hood annihilating the Church in Italy. This is precisely what such Italian statesmen as Prime Minister Depretis now openly confess to be the purpose of their legislation and policy. * In a note to the Protest on the Royal Exequatur, mentioned on p. 171, it is s.iid : " Omitting the mention of many other instances of banishment and concentration, . . [we take that] of the instantaneous expulsion and deportation to Sardinia of the Capuchin Fathers of Todi, of the Reformed Franciscans of Massa, of the Observantines and Reformed of Orvieto, which took place in last May [1S63], without any judicial process, and under military escort, as well as the general upsetting and exiling of all the Mendicant communities of Umbria which has just been accomplish ed (" Scelta," p. 369). t La scure inesorabile che } messa alle radici del vivaio della chiesa (ibidem, n. 5x9). i65 DEPLORABLE CONDITION OF THE CLERGY. 167 From 1859 to 1869 statistical figures show, as the Cardi nal states in the beginning of his pastoral, that the number of deaths among his clergy exceeded by thirty the number of ordinations to the priesthood. " It is easy to see from this raoraent forward," he says, " that the burden of military service must inevitably fall on all young men who have devoted themselves to the clerical career. We are deeply saddened by this ; we are tortured by the thought that so many parishes will ask us for pastors, while we shall have none to give them ; that so many pious populations will ask for the food of Chris tian instruction and the comfort of the sacraments, and that no one will be found to minister to them ; and that, such a state of things continuing, there is nothing to pre vent religion from dying out in these country-places for the very lack of hands to cultivate it." Then, with a simple and earnest eloquence in which one feels the loving pastor's heart in every phrase, Cardinal Pecci goes on to say how an appeal should be made to the people of the diocese in order to create a fund for purchas ing the freedom of poor young clerics whose talents and virtues hold out the promise of their being worthy and efficient priests. " This work," he says, " is eminently religious and chari table. . . . Even considered in its social aspect it has a value and an importance that are unquestionable. For there can be no doubt but that the lack of priests would se riously injure the religious and moral culture of the peo ple, on which depend order, tranquillity, and the well-being of the entire community. We expect, therefore, no one among sincere Catholics, no matter how straitened and burdened financially, will refuse to do what he can and what piety and religion suggest. Above all, we trust to the zeal and solicitude of our clergy. . . ." This to his diocesans. Then he lays down the statutes for the commission which he establishes for such a noble object. A month after the pastoral letter he addressed a circu- 1 68 LIFE OF LEO XIII. lar to his parish priests, urging on them the greatest zeal and generosity in forwarding the labor of the commission. " I know the straits to which the clergy have been reduced," he writes, " but I also know the spirit of sacri fice and charity which animates them. Christian charity does not know and should not know what difficulty is, in a work especially such as the present, which aims at keep ing off the pntiless axe with which they strike at the roots of our young trees in the nursery of the Church. . . . " If we see lay societies of mutual help making such strenuous efforts to succeed in their purpose, how can we help making equal efforts to rescue so many young men who were being educated and trained for the priesthood, and who are dragged away to the ranks of the army and the exercises of a military camp? If the good work we have taken in hand should not succeed, then we may be sure that the education of the priesthood and the semi naries will be given up altogether." * The commission did succeed, thanks not only to the excellence of the charity which it advocated, but thanks as well to the hearty zeal with which Cardinal Pecci plead ed the cause of these young students — a zeal which his words and example communicated to both people and clergy. Thus appealed he in 1869. But there were other needs among the clergy which touched his fatherly heart no less deeply. Foremost among these was the utter destitution to which so many ecclesiastics had been reduced since i860 by the sequestration of all Church property and revenues, and the conversion of the little left to the clergy into state bonds. The whole system of this legislative plunder was devised, calculated, wrought out scientifically either to ex tinguish the clergy altogether by deterring young men frora joining the ranks of a hopelessly degraded and im poverished priesthood, or by making of all priests thus de pendent on the wretched pittance irregularly and grudg ingly dealt out by the state treasury the abject slaves of * " Scelta," pp. 516-520. A PRIVATE RELIEF FUND ESTABLISHED. 169 an inhuman and anti-Christian power. The miserable dole obtained from the government of Victor Emmanuel — and the same applies to King Umberto's administration — barely kept the recipients frora starvation, if they would with it keep a roof above them and decent clerical raiment on their backs. When sickness and old age with its infirmities came to them no words can describe their destitution. A poor priest, in sickness and old age, is everywhere one deserving of tender coramiseration. But in once beautiful, fertile, and bountiful Italy the Revolution has contrived to make the lot of the poor, sick, and aged priest one of indescribable hardship. Cardinal Pecci exhorted and encouraged the clergy of his diocese to establish a private Relief Fund and a So dality to administer it. The Sodality was coraposed of the raerabers of the clergy. It was called the " Pious Union of St. Joachim for Needy Ecclesiastics!' Every member paid into the fund an annual fee of five lire (one dollar, or four shillings English money). These regular contributions, to gether with the donations of benefactors and the voluntary offerings of the faithful, brought timely and indispensable relief to many a lowly roof where poor priests, born in opu lence, devoted from their youth to the holy ministry, after having lost their position and being stripped of their own lawful patrimony, were left to pine away unhelped, un- pitied, unnoticed by the spoiler. We cannot refrain here from denouncing to the indigna tion of the civilized world the crowning cruelty and mean ness of the Italian governraent, established, forsooth, in the name of liberty, of progress, of civilization ! Not satisfied with sequestrating all ecclesiastical property, seizing upon the residences of the bishops and the revenue (inensa vesco- vile) established for their permanent support, it refused to allow any but those whora, for one political reason or an other, it approved of to take possession of their residences and to enjoy what the government thought fit of their revenues. This was the working of the royal exequatur menrioned elsewhere. To the eternal honor of the bishops 170 LIFE OF LLO XIII. of Italy be it said that most of those who were appointed by the Holy See could not be brought to truckle to the usurping government, or to come to any compromise with the n&^N principles and the new masters of Italy, and so were refused the use of the episcopal residence and the enjoyment of their salaries. The Holy Father, thanks to the liberality of the Catho lic world, to the Peter's Pence contributed by every land, was able to bestow on these bishops a teraporary allowance barely sufficient to provide for their necessities. Well, the Depretis government found that this was defeating their darling purpose — to make bishops and clergy, so long as any such remained in Italy, entirely dependent on the state.' Forthwith a law was passed compelling bishops and all other religious persons thus receiving from the Pope a regular help or stipend in the way of money to pay into the treasury a tax of one-third of the whole until such time as they could prove that such aid in money had ceased to be given to them ! We doubt if Nero, or Diocletian, or Julian the Apos tate would have condescended to so base a device. It is due to the reader who is interested in the public acts of the great personage whose life we are sketching to show, ere concluding this chapter, how nobly Cardinal Pecci could defend the interests of his persecuted clergy and in spire his brother bishops with his own courage and deter mination. We have from the pen of the Archbishop of Perugia one of those outspoken and fearless protests addressed to King Victor Eraraanuel, and signed by all the bishops of Umbria and the Marches. It is dated August i, 1864, and IS directed against the law which compelled the members of the clergy without distinction, and the clerical students in the seminaries, to serve in the army or navy the regular term imposed on laymen. It was a vain appeal. As well might they have pleaded to the famished tiger to let go its prey and forego the opportunity of satiating its rabid hunger, as ask Victor AN ELOQ UENT REMOxYSTRANCE. i 7 1 Emmanuel, or rather the man who ruled and used him, to forego the opportunity, now that he had the power, of degrading and extinguishing the Catholic clergy, and with them the Church itself. This was precisely what the Revo lution aimed at, what the kingdom of Italy, its legislature and administration, were organized for. Surely they must do their own proper work. None the less eloquent, courageous, and victorious is this noble remonstrance : " Sire : With souls deeply grieved we come once more to bring before your majesty our respectful but serious complaints about the evils which are heaped unceasingly on the churches given us to govern : we are willing to hope that our voice may yet be listened to and that justice may be done. During each of the last four years we have raised our voices with increasing frequency, and have given ut terance to the grief of our holy religion, affiicted and op pressed in so many ways — by the setting aside ecclesiasti cal immunities ; by depriving her ministers of the necessary means of subsistence ; by preventing all free intercourse between the Head of the Church, the pastors, and the people ; by withdrawing from all dependence on the bish ops both schools and institutions of piety which these same bishops had themselves founded, or which had been placed under their care and governraent by the pious founders ; by profaning, or even destroying, the sacred tem ples ; by expelhng frora their homes the Religious Orders, and by so many other acts which it would be too long and too sad to enumerate. " The fact that no heed whatever was paid to our com plaints would have induced us to remain silent, contenting ourselves henceforward with laraenting and praying. But a new wrong which is about to be coraraitted against the Church corapels us to have recourse to your majesty and to unite our voice to that of our flocks. " Very limited as is at the present raoraent the number of young clerical students who may, at the request of their bishops, be exempted from railitary conscription, neverthe- 172 LIFE OF LEO XIII. less by a new law it is proposed to annul all these exemp tions — a raeasure which would go very near to extinguish altogether the priestly rainistry. They allege, to excuse this law, the singular pretext that all citizens are equally obliged to support the burdens of the state, no matter how these may happen to be felt. But without desiring to recall to mind here how little this reason availed to save the clergy in other cases where they were made the subject of injurious and odious exceptions, we raust press upon your consideration that the choice of her ministers was not imposed upon the Church by any human law, but that it is a sacred right which comes to her from her Divine Founder. Wherefore, instead of suppressing such right, it should in no wise be either restricted or dimin ished. . . . " . . . If the holy ministry could be abolished the Church would be destroyed ; and this was exactly what Julian the Apostate vainly attempted to accomplish by commanding that all the subjects of the Empire, without any distinction whatever, should be compelled to bear arms. . . . This tyrannical law was soon repealed by Va- lentinian, who, like the great Constantine, recognized the right of the Church to choose freely her own minis ters. . . . "We shall not stop here to recall to your mind, sire, what long and important studies are necessary, besides the qualities of the heart, to enable young ecclesiastics to be thoroughly prepared for their raost iraportant functions- studies which usually have to be raade at the very age when young men are called away by the conscription law. Hence it is that it would be alraost irapossible for a young raan, even if he should during his long term of military service keep his soul pure, and not lose amid so many obstacles and seductions the spirit of his vocation, to afterwards undergo a long training in order to enter the sanctuary. . . . The life of a cleric is incompatible with that of the soldier. "... Statesmen are solicitous that a single family DEFENDING HIS PRIESTS. I J 2, should not become extinct in the state ; will there, then, be no care taken that the hierarchy of the Church shall be maintained, supremely and vitally iraportant as its ejt- istence is to the entire Christian family? ..." "... Whether it corae from the pursuit of temporal interests, or from bad education, or from the little respect paid in our day to the priestly character, the greater num ber of candidates for the ministry come, in our times, from poor farailies ; and they have only the means to perse vere in and follow out their vocation given them by their bishops to return to the seminary. And these means are so restricted that we often see, with a real pain to our father ly heart, young men very dear to us taken away from the seminary in the very midst of their course. . . . We are only allowed to purchase the exemption of one student for every twenty thousand inhabitants ; and so these young men are forced into a profession entirely opposed to their character and wishes. In the grief of our souls we could not persuade ourselves that, with all we hear about individual liberty, such liberty should not be allowed in the most serious affair with which man has to deal in this life — the choice of his own profession, and the full liberty to consecrate himself to God." The Cardinal pushes aside the vulgar objections drawn from "a too great abundance of priests, far above the spiritual needs of the people." That reason does not hold at present. " Where, not many years ago, there were many assistant priests, now the rector is left alone to face the manifold duties of his office. Besides, vocations are injuriously influenced by the spirit of the age, by irreligious maxims, the corruption of morals, the anti-Christian edu cation given to youth. . . . Then there is the taking away from the clergy of their means of honorable subsistence, the attraction toward lucrative secular avocations, the out rageous persecution of the priesthood by falsehoods, calum nies, ridicule, sarcasm, insults offered in the house of God itself, by lawsuits, fines, imprisonment, all inflicted even on persons occupying the highest stations in the Church. 174 LIFE OF LEO XIII. " For all these reasons, if at all times it was an act of virtue and self-denial to consecrate one's self to the service of the altar and to embrace the clerical profession, it is a thousand times more so in our day. . . . "Sire, the supreme good of a nation is its morality, and this only comes from religion and from the salutary influ ence of its m-inisters. What would an army have to defend in a people without faith, without morals, in a people sunk in corruption ? If you take away Christian instruction, the preaching of the Gospel, the frequentation of the sacra ments, the worship and fear of God, can the fear of armed men keep the raultitude faithful to their duties ? And in the array itself will not morality be the result of that created in the nation by the influence of religion ? " We beseech you, sire, to consider well to what depths of corruption a community would descend if, on the one hand, all the restraints of good morals were relaxed, and, on the other, all the avenues to evil were thrown wide open ! It is a sad avowal that we are compelled to make, and that from the evidence of facts. A libertine press no longer spares any holy person or holy thing ; the theatrical amuse ments are full of impiety and obscenity ; infaraous resorts are opened to enable the sinner to sin safely ; blasphemers assail with impunity God, the Virgin Mother, the Saints- nothing restrains the sacrilegious tongue; the sacred im ages are insulted ; crosses are torn down ; churches, even such as are consecrated, are turned into market-houses or are pulled down ; the ministers of God are persecuted even in the church itself, even in the very functions of their rainistry which regard the conscience. And now, as if all this were little or nothing, is the sacred ministry itself to be abolished ? Our mind is confounded and our heart is torn with grief when we think that, besides all the calamities that we here indicate rapidly, the priesthood it self shall fail, and with it all remedy, all comfort. " What will become of the Christian people when they are deprived of the necessary teachers of childhood, of the men who comfort the widow and the orphan, of those ./ PATHETIC APPEAL. 175 who soften the pains and labors of the present life by the thought and hope of the life to corae, who wipe away the tears of the afflicted, who direct the doubting and hesi tating by words of good counsel, and cheer the last hours of the dying? " And if our own people lack priests for their need, where shall we find those generous ministers of God who, breaking the dearest ties of the human soul here below, go forth araong savage peoples to preach the Gospel, and to plant there the seeds of civilization with the truths of Christian faith ? " We are not exaggerating, sire : such would be the re sults of this unblessed law, of which it would be irapossible to predicate whether it is raore hurtful to the Church or to the state itself. " After this, it is not surprising that no civilized nation in Europe, even the most warlike and in the time when they most needed soldiers, ever thought of enacting such laws. And will it be Italy, Catholic Italy, which will give the world so unhappy an example ? . . . " For pity's sake put, once for all, a stop to all these laws which succeed each other, tread upon each other, and are heaped up one on the other, all injuring the Church — an injury which invariably redounds as well to the injury of the state." * * " Scelta degli Atti," pp. 373-8o, Aug. i, 1864. CHAPTER XIII. THE BENEFACTOR OF PERUGIA — SOWING AND PLANTING BEFORE THE STORM AND THE EARTHQUAKE. — A BIRD'S- EYE VIEW OF THE FIELD. /"^VEN in the political and in the raaterial orders Arch- V^J bishop Pecci's enlightened and active charity found raeans and opportunities of benefiting Perugia and her citi zens, as well as his entire diocese. In the very beginning of his episcopal administration — in the autumn of 1846 — the same unquiet spirit which was already playing the tyrant in Rome stirred up a riot in Perugia. The excited crowds were attempting to break open the prisons and to liberate, together with all persons detained there for political of fences, all the crirainals of the country. Already they had taken up arms to resist the Pontifical troops, and the city was threatened with bloodshed and arson, when the Arch bishop appeared upon the scene, interposed his pacific authority between the combatants, and put an end to the conflict. Worse calamities threatened Umbria and its capital in 1849, when, after the taking of Rome by the French troops, the bands of Garibaldi, under the coraraand of the notori ous Arcioni and Forbes, coraraitted all kinds of outrages around Perugia and in the city itself. No priestly influence could soften the fanatical ferocity of these brigands, whom English and American anti-papal prejudice has exalted into heroes, whereas they were only lawless free-booters delight ing especially in sacrilege and in insulting, persecuting, and massacring (whenever they could) defenceless and harm less priests and raonks. When the Austrians under Prince Von Lichtenstein ad vanced to repel these bands and to protect the Pontifical provinces from their raids, Monsignor Pecci, who knew the 176 CARDINAL PECCrs BENEFACTIONS. 177 temper of his people well and their rooted dislike to these foreigners, deeraed it vital to the peace of Perugia to pre vent the city from being occupied by them. He therefore went to meet the Austrian general, and his wise counsels once more prevailed and saved his people from new ca lamities. In 1854 — raade remarkable in Perugia b)- the celebra tion in February' of Monsignor Pecci's elevation to the Cardinalate — the whole of Central Italy suffered severely from dearth, amounting alraost to a famine. To this were added earthquakes, filling the people with terror, as if the divine anger were about to let loose all its plagues against an ungrateful and guilty countrj-. Cardinal Pecci's fatherh- forethought had already sug gested the establishment of Monti Friitnoitari, or" Deposits of Grain," in every' country parish, which would, in seasons of scarcity, render the poor country-folk the same services which the Moiti di Pieta, or Popular Loan Banks, so long known and so heartily appreciated in Italy, had ever ren dered to the laboring classes. When, in the beginning of 1854, the scarcity began to be most distressing, and the bread, which is the staple of food for the raasses of the Italian population, was either at famine prices or could not be obtained at all, the Car dinal showed both his unbounded charity and his wonder ful executive skill. He gave the example to the rich and to Religious Communities by opening in the episcopal residence itself a free kitchen for the poor, with daily doles of unprepared food. The son of Countess Anna Pecci was raindful of the examples of the mother on whose torabstone it is inscribed that she was " the feeder of the needy." * Nourishing, sub stantial soups and broths were every morning dealt out to the needy as long as the distress lasted. It seemed to cost the good Archbishop no effort to deprive himself of all but the strict necessaries to himself and his household when Christ's poor were suffering — so few were his own personal * Altrix pauperum. 1 78 LIFE OF LEO XIII. wants, so frugal and self-denying the life which, in truth, resembled that of an Eastern ascetic. But he also made his clergy and all the wealthy mem bers of his flock his zealous co-operators at this season. The revolutionary societies always found in the periodical returns of scarcity a ready argument against the Pontifical government : the scarcity and the consequent popufar dis tress, they said (and they were believed), were caused by the authorities, who bought up and hoarded the grain and spe culated upon it, unmindful of the starving people. Cardinal Pecci thought that the best answer to this was to take counsel with the provincial government and the raunicipal raagistrates in providing food for the really needy, in getting profitable labor, sufficient wages, and cheap provisions for all who were able to work. On January 7, 1854, he published a short and eloquent pastoral letter, appealing to his people to exert themselves in the reigning distress as true Christians, and organizing a " Commission of Charity " under his own personal direc tion, the membership of which embraced clergy and laity, extending its branches all over the diocese, and effectually raeeting all the needs of the population. The raotives suggested in his urgent appeal to his dio cesans, and the active measures which he prescribed in the rules of this Commission of Charity, are alike admirable, showing how little the Cardinal wished to encourage men dicancy or idleness, and how anxious he was. to stimulate all able-bodied persons to work by finding remunerative labor for them in their distress, and preventing little tra ders from speculating on it. " To give to the poor," he says, " from out our super abundance is a duty imposed by the Divine Master on all Christians, without exception of times or persons. But to help them with something more than what is superfluous, by limiting our desires and what we make use of to live upon, when it is required by their extraordinary necessities that we should do so ; to help thera so because they bear the image of our Heavenly Father and their condition } v.. ~xr -1 V, "feV 1 So LIFE OF LEO XIII. touches our brotherly hearts as if it were our own ; to aim, in fact, at enabling thera to bless God's fatherly providence in their distress, because it is His hand which is reached out to them in ours, . . . this is what shows in its proper light the greatness and helpfulness of Christian beneficence." On February 25, 1854, immediately after the festivitie.'-, on the occasion of his promotion, he urged the active pro secution of this noble charity on his parochial clergy by a circular letter, in which he warmly pleaded the cause of the distressed, and laid down the most practical rules for mak ing the Commission of Charity a success everywhere. He again presses them to establish the Monti Friiincntari in their respective localities.* " Our zeal and charity," he writes, " which should be the .soul of our pastoral mission, can neither be inoperative nor indifferent in presence of the manifold miseries which now afflict our flock, and which come this year from the failure of the harvests and the scarcity of provisions. If our Lord, after having been so long irritated, and having so long waited patiently and in vain that we should amend our lives and correct our evil conduct, has at length lifted the scourge over our heads, . . . our people should not there fore be left without the comfort and help of religion. . . . " Explain to your people what are the real causes of the present distress. . . . Take away from tlie minds of the fearful or the unwary the exaggerated and deceptive illu sions which the evil-minded propagate, that their sufferings come from the selfish schemes of speculators or the negli gence of the government." f During the troublous times of 1859 and i860 Cardinal Pecci had abundant opportunity for " giving other proofs of his pastoral and patriotic charity toward his flock. He employed the warmest and most fatherly exhorta tions to dissuade the leaders of the insurrection from the acts which led to the fatal conflict of June 20, 1859, which was afterward painted as ' the Massacre of Perugia '; but t.i ; gentle voice of the Archbishop, unhappily, was not lis- *" Scelta," p. 506. fibid. p. 508. THE INVASION OF i860. I g [ tened to, and was overborne by the secret impulsion given to the insurgents by the prime movers in the rising. Sad dened by his ineffectual attempts to prevent the bloody scenes which followed, he bestowed all his kindest efforts on assuaging the bitter suffering which followed. He suc ceeded in obtaining pardon for the guilty subjects of the Pope, as well as compensation to all those whose property had been injured." * At length came the invasion of i860. We prefer to give what followed in the words of our manuscript authority : "The Swiss garrison, attacked unexpectedly by the Piedmontese in the early morning, after having several times endeavored to repel the assailants, were overborne by numbers and took refuge in the Pauline Fort. There they entered into negotiations for a suspension of arms. While these were going on, and under the pretext that bands of Pontifical troops had found a retreat there, the episcopal residence, that of the canons, and the seminary were taken possession of by the military, who broke open gates and doors with their axes. Meanwhile the bulk of the [Pied montese] army, with a formidable artillery, which was even posted in the porch of the cathedral, was preparing to bom bard and assault the fort, which [by replying to this fire] would have filled the city with ruin and death. " Thereupon the Cardinal-Archbishop, with the gonfalo- niere [mayor], asked to see the general-in-chief, Fanti, who was the Piedmontese Minister of War, with the intention of beseeching hira not to carry out his design. His pastoral solicitude only raet with a rude repulse, for the bombard ment and the assault began with great vigor at the expi ration of the brief truce. Still, the Cardinal's interposition * MS. It was a misfortune that in putting down the insurrection in Perugia they did not employ the French contingent which then garrisoned Rome, inst'ead of the Swiss troops in the Pontifical service. It was a part of Napoleon's polic}' to make it appear that the Pope employed his foreign mercenaries to massacre his Italian sub}ects ; whereas if the French arms had been employed no one would ever have heard of the " Massacre of Perugia." 1 82 LIFE OF LEO XIII. had no little influence in preventing the assailants from taking offensive measures against the citizens ; it prevent ed also the effusion of blood, and helped . to obtain more favorable conditions for the besieged. " Deeply pained as Cardinal Pecci had been by the dreadful scenes of the 14th of September, he had another cause of anguish on the morrow in the unhappy fate of Don Baldassare Santi, one of the city rectors. This ex cellent man was falsely accused of having borne arms in repulsing the Piedmontese, and had been condemned to death by a court-martial during the night. The Cardinal heard of the sentence early in the morning of the 15th, and lost not an instant in seeking the general in com mand, De Sonnaz, and asking for a more careful and for mal investigation of the charge, for a revision of the acts of the court-martial, and a suspension of the hasty death- sentence. The accused had in his favor a well-known re putation for virtue and other presumptions of innocence. " But even in this second act of intervention the Car dinal was grieved to see his mediation rejected and all the efforts of his fatherly charity fail in their purpose. " From that day dated for him the beginning of a long series of bitter trials and vexations arising from the estab lishment of a new dictatorial power ruling all Umbria, and from the sudden transformation and overturning of all ec clesiastical institutions." * So the battle with the Revolution had begun in earnest. But before describing in other chapters the chief inci dents of this momentous struggle we may continue to take a rapid survey of what this good shepherd did for his flock. No sooner was all Umbria in possession of the Pied montese than Perugia was filled by swarms of political Italian exiles who had found a refuge in Piedmont. They had long lived in poverty and were hungry for the spoils of the Pontifical government and its adherents.' These men were all supported at the public expense— that is, the expense of the conquered provinces and peoples. Of *MS. DEPLORABLE RESULTS OF THE INVASION. \'^X •J course those among thera who were natives of these pro vinces had more than one sort of accounts to settle with their fellow-countrymen. The numbers of these famished place-hunters were further increased by the merabers of the former volunteer bands of various descriptions who had fought under Garibaldi and his lieutenants, had followed the Piedmontese army of in\-asion, and had been " living on the country." " One raay imagine how the coming together in Perugia of all these elements contributed to put an end to good order, to ruin public morality, and, above all, to destroy all respect for religion and the priesthood. All of a sudden they proclairaed all the subversive laws enacted in Pied mont, and with thera was issued, on October 31, i860, a commissarial decree imposing on all Umbria the institu tion of civil marriage, with penalties which affected also parish priests, who were at the sarae tirae corapelled to sur render the sacramental registers. " Then it happened that, while abundant favors were bestowed on bad and renegade priests, who had also come back from banishment, the good priests, on the contrary, and such as had ever been faithful to their duty, were con tinually threatened and placed under surveillance ; they were made a butt for slander, for malignant denunciations ; they were indicted, arrested, interned, imprisoned, and banished the country. " Not even the Cardinal- Archbishop of Perugia was saved from this species of persecution. In 1862 he was sued in the courts of justice for having opposed the estab lished institutions, because he had offlcially admonished some of his priests who had subscribed an address to the notorious Padre Passaglia. But he not only came trium phantly out of this suit, but with a vigorous and judicious zeal he defended the interests of religion, and gave a wi.se direction to the conduct of his clergy amid the perilous cir cumstances of the times. " A long series of episcopal acts and remonstrances which passed between- the Cardinal and the functionaries 1 84 IIPP OF LEO XIIL of the new government from i860 to 1878 bear an illustri ous testimony to the truth of what has just been said. Many of these acts are now in print, and several of them bear the signatures of all the bishops of Umbria.* " Besides this he displayed the most efficient zeal in pleading before the new men in power the innocence of his parish priests, wrongfully persecuted and imprisoned, as well as to save from measures of violence and instan taneous expulsion religious communities, among which were Dominicans, Barnabites, Caraaldolese Hermits, Missionaries, Oratorians. He acted in the sarae way to save cloistered coramunities of nuns from expulsion and concentration (in one house), to prevent the closing and profanation of churches and the opening of heterodox teraples. " On all these occasions the tone of his correspondence with the civil authorities was uniformly dignified and mo derate, while being also full of vigor and convincing, such as to compel the respect of these officials, and to prevent measures of greater harshness and destructiveness from being enacted against his diocese. " Such was also the character of the many sensible and practical instructions addressed to his clergy in the most dif ficult conjunctures, especially on the confiscation of the pa rochial records, on civil marriage, on the abolition of tithes, *In the collection entitled " L'Episcopnto e la Rivoluzionein Italia. Atti Collettivi dei Vescovi Italiani," Mondovi, 1867, two vols., are printed the following acts of the Umbrian hierarchy : 1864. Against the "Conscription of Ecclesiastics"; against "the.ln- terference of the Government in Ecclesiastical Seminaries'' ; against the "Decree subjecting the Nomination of Spiritual Administrators and Pa rochial Vicars to the royaX placet." 1865. Against the projected law abolishing Religious Orders and se questrating ecclesiastical property. In the "Scelta di Atti Episcopall del Card. Gioacchino Pecci" are found nine Collective Acts signed by him and other bishops, and nine official remonstrances addressed to the Royal Commissioner for Umbria, to King Victor Emmanuel, to the President of the Council of Ministers, to the Prefect of Umbria, all directed to the defence of the religious interests thren toned by the Piedmontese reforms (?). Note of the MS. LABORS IN BE HA LF OF ED UCA TION. I 8 5 on the suppression of tlie ecclesiastical courts, on the na tional feast, as well as on the enclosure of nuns, on the compilation of in\'entories, and on the order of public wor ship in the churches after the dispersion of the regulars." ¦¦•¦ We ha\e allowed one who was intimately acquainted with all the circumstances he relates, and who himself took a part in the events and labors enumerated, to present the above cursory narrative. It is like a voice, an authorized voice, calm and conscientious, from Perugia, sketching out for us the outlines of a bus)- life. On some of the acts which he merely points to we shall have to dwell at greater length on account of their intrinsic importance and lasting interest. But, although surveying thus rapidly the events which followed each other in Perugia and Umbria from 1846 to the invasion of the Pontifical dominions b}- Piedmont and the firm establishment of the Revolutionary sway in Central and Southern Italy, we have only glanced at a portion of what Cardinal Pecci undertook and accomplished for his people. In speaking of education we have only mentioned in detail what concerned his seminarians and his priests. He was, from the beginning of his episcopate, no less zealous for lay instruction. Pius IX., who appreciated his learn ing as well as his zeal and fitness to promote it, appointed him Apostolic Visitor of the University of Perugia. With his wonted intelligence and zeal, that restless energy which pauses not till it has overcome every obstacle in the path of a great design, and which Americans call "push," the new Archbishop Bishop went about doing for the univer sity what he was doing for his own seminary — he remodel- ' led and reorganized it, called to its faculties the best talent he could obtain, reformed, elevated, completed the whole programme of professional and scientific studies, and en deavored in every way to make of this ancient seat of learn ing what it had been in mediaeval times when it rivalled Bologna and Pavia. He rendered similar services to the *MS. I 86 LIFE OF LEO XIII. Collegio Pio della Sapienza, of which he was also appoint ed Visitor, and to the College of Todi, which he soon placed on such a footing that the best families of Umbria and the Marches sent their sons there to be educated. Female education was no less indebted to his zeal and enlightened liberality. While enlarging and improving his Serainary and reorganizing the University of Perugia he was also carrying out another design for the better educa tion not only of the daughters of the noble and burgess classes, but of those of the laboring masses as well. The Conservatorio Pio, which became under Monsignor Pecci a great high-school for female education, had its first origin in 1816, when, at the petition of the then Bishop of Peru gia and the municipal authorities, Pius VII. appropriated to the establishment of an elementary free school for girls, as well as an academy for the daughters of the better classes, the patrimony of two monasteries suppressed by the former French government in Italy. The institution was placed by the Pope under the care of a board of four directors. The free day-school for little girls was opened in 1819; the want of necessary means prevented the establishment of the superior school till 1846, when Monsignor Pecci was appointed Archbishop of Perugia. He, with his wonted determination, resolved that the original design should be carried out. Writing to King Victor Emmanuel in Novem ber, 1 861, when the government had laid its hand on the beautiful and flourishing institution. Cardinal Pecci relates how it had its second birth : " Poverty, the want of a proper site, and other obsta cles had for a long time frustrated the desires of the pubhc, when the Holy See sent me to Perugia. The whole city knows how, within the space of a few months, we succeed ed in making a beginning, having obtained perfect unity of purpose and brushed aside all delays. We saw in a short time a vast and remarkable edifice built up from the foun dations in the most lovely and happy site, and of a style and beauty of form that can compare well with any similar pro- ESTABLISHING SCHOOLS AND PROTECTORATES. I 87 vincial establishment. Assisted by the unaniraous and un wearied co-operation of the four directors, and by the en couragement given by the reigning Pontiff (who took it under his special protection), I had the satisfaction, in 1857, to see the wishes of the public realized, and to give to the country this new school, so long desired and so use ful. Some Sisters of the Sacred Heart were called to take charge of the interior discipline and the instruction of the pupils." The Cardinal placed the house under the patron age of St. Ann, doubtless in remerabrance of his mother. The Ladies of the Sacred Heart are obliged by their rules to have a poor school attached to their establishments whenever that is practicable. Their wishes were fulfilled here, for the Cardinal had opened a large and spacious day- school for little girls of the laboring classes, so that their devoted mistresses could satisfy all the yearnings of their hearts in rearing to all goodness and useful knowledge the children of every class in the city. But the equal!}- devoted Pastor would have every child of his flock receive the boon of a truly Christian education. The daughters of the poor in every land are exposed to peculiar dangers ; and Cardinal Pecci knew well that in the Italy of his day every one of the little girls who went forth daily, in town and country, from the poor man's hovel, needed special care and special grace to become in due time a true Christian woman, the mother of true Chris tian men. Such he would have all these poor little ones of his flock. For their education and reception he founded the Conservatorio Graziani, a protectory school worthy of any city. He next -founded a Magdalen Asylum, a no less »noble charity. Both of these houses he placed under the Belgian Sisters of Providence, whom he sent for to Cham pion, in the province of Namur. Other protectory schools already in existence received a new impulse and arose to new life under the touch of his pastoral zeal. He had the gift of making every establishment he took in hand a financial as well as an educational success. The same all-embracing charity which protected the 1 88 LIFE OF LEO XIII. « innocent and lifted up the fallen soon provided the Anti- nori Foundling Asylum, which he placed under the care of the Sisterhood of the Stigmata of St. Francis, as well as the Donnini Hospice for incurable and chronic diseases. He did not forget night-schools for children who had to work all day, especially for young artisans. He would have these receive all the instruction necessary to become really superior in their respective crafts. We have already mentioned the pleasure gardens of St. Philip Neri, under the care of the Oratorians, who had also the co-operation of the young clergy. There, on Sun days and holydays, boys and youths found delightful re creation, facilities for attending divine worship, Christian instruction, safe and agreeable companionship, and protec tion from the many snares laid in the world outside for unsuspecting youth. So that no sex or age or class, or pressing need of mind, of heart, of soul or body, was left uncared for, un provided for by this good shepherd of Christ's flock. No, not even the industrial and commercial wants of the struggling, laborious, and thrifty classes. Cardinal Pecci founded, revived, improved, or developed the Monti di Pieth, the poor raan's blessed resource in the Catholic Italy that was, where for the money loaned to those whO' wished to rise frora poverty to independence, or to increase their thrift, no interest, or nothing approaching to modern; interest for raoney, was ever asked. It was he who inspired the Perugians to found their savings-bank, furnishing hiraself a good part of the capi tal. One of the chief duties of a bishop is to visit regularly,. at brief intervals, every portion of his diocese, examining personally everything that pertains to the interests of re ligion, the instruction of the flock, the condition of public worship, the state of public morality, and the prosperity of parochial institutions of every kind. The bishop goes as the chief pastor, to see to it that his subordinates per form their duty, to listen to the coraplaints of the people. THE CARDINAL'S PASTORAL VISITATIONS. 189 to correct abuses, reprove indiscipline, and uproot all scan dals. It is an arduous task, but one most necessary to be undertaken and performed in the right spirit. Monsignor Pecci was too anxious to ascertain for hiraself what was to be done for the good of souls, and the ad vancement of religion in every corner of his diocese, not to set about visiting it soon after taking possession of his see. And he renewed these visits with the most scrupu lous punctuality every fourth year during his long stay in Perugia. Nor was his visitation a hasty, perfunctory, and superficial one. It was the work of a man who believed, and acted on the belief, that he had to answer on his own soul for the soul of every single human creature confided to his care. On thus visiting in succession each parish a bishop ascertains whether the word of God is duly explained to the people from the pulpit, or whether their children are carefully instructed in the Christian doctrine. It is certain that Monsignor Pecci took every precaution to have these indispensable duties of the pastorate performed by his priests. We have omitted to mention one of his own favorite and beneficent reforms. He had in his diocese an orphanage for boys which sadly needed improvement. He at once resolved, while making it an asylum for these waifs of his flock, to make of it an industrial school as well as a loved horae for these little ones. He had seen, during his stay in Belgium, the Brothers of Mercy at work and effecting some such won ders as the Irish Christian Brothers at the orphanage of Glasnevin, near Dublin, and at the great industrial school of Artane. A colony of the Brothers of Mercy was, there fore, called frora Belgiura and placed in charge of the or phanage of Perugia, which soon becarae a beehive filled with happy and healthful toilers. The same wise and provident methods were adopted for these boys which worked so admirably in the case of the orphan giris of the Graziani Protectorate ; it was the I 90 LIFE OF LEO XIII. Cardinal's aira to make of these orphans of both sexes, when they had to leave their teraporary horaes, children so well reared and grounded in Christian principle that they should remain ever after true to God, and children so in dustriously trained that they were prepared to be self- supporting and raost useful members of society. For both the one institution and the other, when they sent forth their charges to begin life in earnest, other pious organizations were ready to give a helping hand and find the children safe and lucrative employment. We have seen how zealous he was to build up in men's souls the spiritual temples of the Most High God ; he was no less zealous and liberal in building, repairing, beautify ing the material house of God. Of course, in a city where the traditions of high art are so constantly cherished as in the capital of Umbria, the cathedral church; the creation of the medisval city in the days when liberty and religion walked hand-in-haiid, was the object of the Archbishop's loving care. The Perugians had been so proud of the beautiful structure, their Duomo, their house of God ! The raisfortunes of more than half a cen tury had left their raark on both interior and exterior; ' the wanton vandalism of impiety and the forced neglect of an impoverished people left not a little to be done. When Archbishop Pecci had attended to the most pressing needs of his diocese, he ordered, in 1849, the laying of a new mar ble pavement in the Duomo ; and later, when he felt sure that he had conscientiously provided for the other wants of his people, he began to restore now one part of the cathedral, and now another, spending on these repairs some twenty thousand crowns. One of his last cares in this respect, before leaving Perugia for ever, was to have the - chapel of Sant' Onofrio adorned with frescoes. In an age, too, when conspicuous writers both in France and Germany labored to destroy in the Christian mind all belief in the supernatural by making of Christ Himself a raere raan, Monsignor Pecci encouraged araong his people the raost fervent devotion to her whom they and their Tomb of Pius IX. in the Church of San Lorenzo, outside the Walls of Rome. 192 LIFE OF LEO XIII. fathers before thera had reverenced as the Mother of God. He built, at the very gates of Perugia, the church of Our Lady of Mercy,* a favorite resort of pilgriras in these times of doubt and dread. He began with what was raost need ful, by building churches where there were none, and sup plying them with zealous priests. In doing the work of God he always thought and said that the workman should trust in a great raeasure to God for the raeans. His trust never failed to be rewarded. During his adrainistration no less than thirty-six church edifices were built from the foundations, and six already in course of construction were completed. Those enlarged, repaired, and beautified are in far greater number. " The exaraple of the Archbishop's generosity," says our manuscript guide, " stimulated the faithful to imitate hira in the raeasure of their own ability. Thus for the church of San Martino in Campo more than twelve thousand crowns were spent ; for the great church of Castiglione del Lago more than twenty-five thousand ;f and so on for raany others which it were too long to men tion here, but which will be mentioned by the chroniclers of that fortunate period during which Perugia had for pas tor and father Joachim Pecci." Elsewhere we have mentioned with what perfect order, piety, and splendor divine worship was celebrated there, so that strangers who came to admire in Perugia the remains * Note in the MS. " To him it is due that we see near Perugia the sanctuary of Ponte della Pietra in honor of Our Ludy of Mercy. Her pic ture had long hung in a poor niche near a torrent, and had moved the popular veneration by several extraordinary favors bestowed on poor peo ple in their need through the intercession of Christ's Blessed Mother. The pious generosity of the faithful induced the bishop to begin the pre sent beautiful temple, which became the centre of a new parish." This recalls the piety shown by Joachim Pecci at Carpineto toward another sanctuary of the Madonna. t When the reader, crossing the Vale of Chiana from below Cortona to Chiusi, comes upon the borders of Lake Thrasymene, he will see, in autumn, from amid the brown foliage of the groves of oak, ihe snow- white cupola and classic outlines of the Duomo of Castiglione projected, like a fairy vision, on the intensely blue waters of the lake. This is the beautiful church mentioned above. CARDINAL PECCTS PRACTICAL JUDGMENT. 193 of the mediaeval architecture and the masterpieces of paint ing which the school of Umbria had accumulated there, remained to witness the " beauty of holiness " in the ser vice of the altar. Cardinal Pecci took especial pains to regulate and cultivate the sacred music which Pergolese had made so entrancing, as well as the sublime Gregorian chant, so well adapted to Catholic worship and congrega tional singing. He loved all the arts, and, born in the sanctuary as they were, he made them minister to the grandeur and glory of the God of the Temple. What he did for his cathedral he also did for all the churches of his diocese. He insisted that everything in the celebration of the divine office should be worthy of God, in harmony with the reality of Catholic belief, and such as to instruct, strengthen, and edify his people. Intensely devoted as he was to all that could advance the interests of his people, temporal as well as spiritual, he wished that every institution of beneficence, like every edu cational establishment, should yield to the utmost the ad vantages for which they had been founded. Not the least of his many great qualities was his clear and practical judg ment in all business matters. Where the most experienced sometimes were puzzled to find their way out of financial difficulties, his instinct enabled him to perceive at once a solution. This was very apparent on many important occasions. " He was well aware that the great hospital of Santa Maria della Misericordia owed its birth to the pastoral zeal of the Bulgarian Bishop Montemelini, who had given it canonical existence by his decree of 1305, and built it with the co-operation of pious citizens of Perugia, lay as well as clerical. Cardinal Pecci thought it his duty to offer this institution his help, reaffirming thereby the right of the bishop to interfere in the good government of an establish ment of public charity of such importance. In this way, and by employing the most discreet prudence, he revived the visiting authority of the bishop with regard to several confraternities which believed themselves exempt from all «3 194 ^^^^ OF LEO XIII. ordinary episcopal superintendence. This exemption was declared in every way unfounded by a decree of the Sa cred Congregation of the Council on August 26, 1854. He thereupon wisely established the ' Tutelary Congregation of Holy Places,' coraposed of the ablest and most experienced clergymen and laymen, who rendered hira the greatest as sistance in governing and protecting the interests of all pious foundations and establishraents. He issued rules for keeping their accounts, and a general law regulating all pious associations and confraternities in his diocese. This reforra did so much good that the bishops of even remote parts of Italy hastened to imitate it in their respective dioceses."* Thus labored he while the field he cultivated was still under his control. But the enemy was nigh and watchful; and the harvest so lovingly and hopefully prepared was destined to be trodden under foot and ravaged by the flame of hostile fires. Assuredly, in placing Joachim Pecci in the see of Pe rugia, Gregory XVI. felt sure that he was not hiding this great light beneath a bushel. *MS. CHAPTER XIV. IN THE B.\TTLE. — I. HE DEFENDS THE TEMPORAL Smi-. REIGXTV OF THE HOLV SEE. 'HE episcopate of Archbishop Pecci in Perugia, coin ciding as it did with the long reign of Pius IX., fell assuredly upon evil days. The greatest calamities which be fell Italy from 1846 to 1878 were not, perhaps, the assaults delivered in such quick succession against the Temporal Power of the Papacy, and battering it down in the end, a.s the anti-Christian and anti social principles and practices pro pagated in Italy by the triumphant Revolution. Monsignor Pecci was too well acquainted with the hostile intentions of some of the great European Powers, with the indifference of others, and the helplessness or selfishness of the so-called Catholic governments, not to foresee, from the day Louis Philippe was dethroned and Pius IX. besieged in the Quiri nal, that the Papacy could expect no effective support for the preservation of its sacred and time-honored rights from what was, in 1848, only the decayed and tottering frame work of the Christendom built up by the Middle Ages. It did not escape the notice of a statesman so well con versant with the political intrigues of the day that English public opinion, as indicated or influenced by the Tiiitcs, the Daily News, and the Standard, was bitterly hostile to the Pope and clamorous for the downfall of his principality, .while the leaders of the two great political parties * — Palmerston and Gladstone especially— conspired actively and openly with Piedmont for the destruction of the ex isting governments in the Italian Peninsula, the extinction of the Temporal Power, and the unification of Italy under * Disraeli's sentiments can be gathered from his " Lothnir," in which the heroej and heroine are the embodiment of Italian anti-papal fanaticism. 195 196 LIFE OF LEO XIII. the sceptre of the house of Savoy. The unprincipled and shallow adventurer who succeeded in 1 848-49 in confiscating to his own profit the French liberties he had sworn to pro tect, was, at bottom, like Carlo Alberto and his son, Victor Emmanuel, only the tool — a half-unwilling tool, it may be — of the revolutionary societies to which he had been early affiliated. Whether knowingly or unwittingly, he in fact only interfered in Italian affairs to betray the interests of the Papacy, to help despoil the Pope of his provinces, one after the other, and then to hand over Rome and its Pon tiff to Piedmont, just as the Fates or the Furies who pur sued him handed him and his empire over to the tender mercies of Prince Bismarck. Monsignor Pecci was not blind to the policy which dynastic ambition or the overmastering revolutionary con spirators, marshalled under Cavour, dictated to the Savoy princes. Still less blind was he to the anti-Christian char acter of the now secret, now open agencies which the Pied montese leaders employed to compass their ends. Politi cal and social Italy was, like the wooden house, eaten through and through by the terrible termites of Mazzini and Garibaldi, and ready to collapse, one part after the other, without any serious resistance. The Archbishop of Perugia, foreseeing the storm and calculating correctly its destructive effects, oraitted no pre caution, no effort, no labor to preserve the rainds and hearts of his people against the evil influences of the spirit which ruled that storm. It may be instructive, at this stage of our narrative, to show how prophetic was the mind which conceived and produced the various pastoral letters pub lished by him as Archbishop of Perugia. They forcibly "reraind one of the trurapet-toned instructions delivered, during a cyclone at sea, by the watchful captain of a vessel to crew and passengers. Every note of warning and com mand tells of the progress of the tempest, the fury of the eleraental war, and the courage or dismay of the ship's company. One of the means employed by the revolutionary so- WORKINGS OF THE RE VOLUTIONAR Y SOCIE TIES, i g 7 cieties, both in France and in Italy, to attract the curious and unwary to their -secret meetings, was magnetisra, or •' spiritualisra," with its exciting revelations. In Great Britain and the United States the main attraction of these spiritualistic or mesmeristic gatherings was curiosity. Po litics had nothing to do with thera. Yet we know what mischief all this charlatanism and iraposture did to reli gion and morality. In France and Italy, where faith undermined was re placed by superstition and a morbid craving for preterna tural knowledge, there was in these meetings not only the moral danger to the conscience, but the revolutionary pas sions and the hatred of the existing religious belief, which were fostered sedulously by the spirit of the place. Cardi nal Pecci, in 1857, issued a pastoral instruction on " The Abuses of Magnetism." He avoided touching on the po litical aspects of the question, as his title indicates. He was also too well read in all that pertains to natural science to deny the existence of natural magnetic forces, of which observation has only revealed very limited effects. But religion and morality must condemn the use made of these mysterious agencies by unprincipled, irreligious, and in terested persons. Then, while in 1859-60 Cavour, following up the effect produced on the unheroic spirit of the French emperor by the Orsini bombs, got him to cross the Alps, fight the Austrians, hold up for a raoment to the sceptic Neo- Guelphs the mirage-vision of an Italy confederated under the Papacy, the Frenchman, half-crazed by his own per sonal dangers at Magenta and the fearful havoc of Sol ferino, withdrew beyond the Alps, after allowing his un warlike namesake and cousin to invade and dismember the Papal dominions and create insurrections in the adjoining States. I't was the second violation by France and the Bona- partes — in alhance, this time, with Piedmont and the Occult Force — of that peaceful and unarmed principality which Charlemagne had bestowed on hira whora all in the ninth 198 LIFE OF LEO XIII. century, even the Greeks, called the Vicar of Christ, the Teacher, Guide, and Parent of all Christians. As around the Church the formative force, the glorious Christendom of our fathers arose, they confirmed and secured to the Popes this sovereignty, to make them independent of any one power or nation in the exercise of their great spiritual office of Universal Pastors. Their freedom in this was the inalienable right of all Christian nations and peoples. The first Napoleon seized upon Pius VII. and carried him off to Fontainebleau, while declaring his States an in tegral part of the first " Kingdom of Italy." But this King dora of Italy, with the first Napoleonic empire and its em peror, soon vanished like the splendid show of a dissolving view. The third Napoleon, ere he died in exile like his uncle, and under the British flag, saw the ninth Pius, whom he had betrayed into the power of the Revolution, strippe^d of all his dominions and left only a shadow of freedom with the mockery of a nominal sovereignty in the Vatican. His empire, too, had gone down, suddenly, frightfully, like one of those seemingly invincible armed vessels devised by modern science, which the first blast of the tempest and the first assault of the waves overwhelm, burying the mighty .ship and her crew in the depths of ocean. The second Kingdom of Italy has its throne in the Quiri nal ; for how long? Just as Cavour and Napoleon III. were planning their Italian campaign, and while Garibaldi was summoned to Turin to co-operate against the Austrians, Cardinal Pecci wrote his pastoral "On the Temporal Dominion of the I'opes." One would almost think, on reading over this pastoral letter now at the beginning of 1887, that he who wrote it must have been inspired by Him to whom there is neither past nor future, but one ever-present knowledge of all human events ; so accurately are described as mere possibilities then, the realities of which Pius IX. and his successor had to endure — the tyranny at the hands of the Piedmontese usurpation and the domination of the Italian Radicals. Our readers will find even in the brief extracts " THE TEMPORAL DOMINION OF THE POPES." igg we here submit a clear and luminous explanation of the present " Roman Question," of the free exercise of the spiritual jurisdiction of the Holy See as a thing, under pro- sent circumstances, inseparable from the Pope's absolute independence in temporals of any sovereign power what ever. The document is dated February 12, i860. It was writ ten, consequently, before Garibaldi's expedition to Sicily and the Piedmontese invasion of the Marches and Umbria. After reciting the ancient errors, dating from the third cen tury of our era down to the fifteenth, which denied the right of the Church or of ecclesiastical persons to possess property or exercise teraporal power of any kind. Cardinal Pecci, in view of the anti-Catholic and revolutionary pro paganda then so active in Italy, declares it his bounden duty to instruct his people " on the temporal dominion of the Holy See." " To discharge before God the strict obligation I have as a bishop to watch over the dangers which threaten the souls of his flock, and not to have one day to reproach my conscience with the terrible Woe is me, because I have held my peace, I address myself to you, O ray beloved people, with all the warrath of my heart, all the zeal of ray soul, begging you, amid the present dreadful upsetting of all notions, the present fearful and fateful circumstances, to hear the voice of your pastor with your wonted docility, inspired as it is solely by that charity which compels him to prefer the salvation of your souls to all human conside rations. " It is all the raore needful that I should do so that, on the one hand, people are raore earnest in their endeavors to persuade you that this ' teraporal dorainion ' has no thing whatever to do with the real interests of Catholicism ; and that, on the other, there are very many persons who, either on account of their simplicity of character, or their lack of knowledge, or their weakness of intellect, do not even suspect the existence of the wicked purpose which is concealed from their eyes with such a criminal skilfulness. 200 LIFE OF LEO XIII. ' There is no question here of religion,' they say ; ' we want religion to be respected. But the Pope must be satisfied with the spiritual governraent of souls ; he has no need of a teraporal sovereignty. Teraporal power turns away the mind to worldly cares ; it is injurious to the Church, op posed to the Gospel, and unlawful ' — with many other silly assertions of this kind, of which it is hard to say whether they are more insulting than hypocritical." Such is the opening of this address. The Catholic world has long known the admirable publications of Bishop Du- panloup on the Roman question and the temporalities of the Holy See. The French language and the perfect lite rary forms of raodern French controversial composition, which the great Orleans prelate used to such good pur pose, have familiarized us all with' his polemical writings. But Cardinal Pecci's pastorals, written in his native Italian, were but little known outside of the Peninsula. This was much to be .regretted. For they are scarcely less racy and vigorous in style than those of the French apologist of the Papacy, and they are more solid in their doctrine. " Let us omit to dwell," the Cardinal continues, " on the new ground on which it is proposed to strip every pro prietor of all that he does not strictly need for his suste nance. What a farce it would be to say to him that by so doing the despoilers were relieving him of the trouble of taking care of his superfluous goods ! Let us say nothing of the august right, consecrated by eleven centuries of pos session, of the raost ancient and venerated of European monarchies : if such rights are not sufficient to insure re spect, then there is no kingdom, no empire in Europe which may not be destroyed. " Let us say nothing of the open robbery of these pos sessions which the piety of the faithful and of sovereigns bestowed on the Roman Pontiff and on the Cathohc body; let us pass by in silence the victoiy of the Revolution over the most sacred and venerable authority which was the corner-stone of European society, as well as the sad state of abasement to which it is proposed to "reduce the Com- AN ADMIRABLE EXPOSITION. 20I mon Father of the faithful, the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church. " Let us pass over in silence the nefarious work of de stroying that teraporal principality which has been at all times the august school of the sciences and fine arts, the well-spring of civilization and wisdom for all nations, the glory of Italy by that raoral priraacy which it secures to her, and which is all the raore noble as spirit is superior to matter ; this bulwark which protected Europe frora the waves of Eastern barbarism ; this power which, by restor ing the ruins of ancient greatness, founded the Christian Rome ; this throne before which the most powerful mon archs have bent low their heads in reverent obeisance, to which from all the courts of Europe, and frora Japan at the extremity of the East, have corae soleran erabassies prof fering horaage and respect. " Let us, I say, omit all that, and all else that might be said of a design which contemplates the committing of an accumulation of crimes; let us limit ourselves to the consideration of the close connection which the spolia tion of the Papal temporal power has with the interests of Catholic doctrine, with the mischievous results sure to follow for the Catholic religion." There are no captious statements, no suppression of the truth, no exaggeration of the rights and clairas of the Papacy. " It is false," the Cardinal says with a manly indigna tion, " that any Catholic holds the temporal dominion to be a dogma of his ifaith ; such an assertion can only have come frora the ignorance or the wickedness of the eneraies of the Church. But it is raost true, and raust be evident to any intelhgent mind, that there is a very close connec tion between this temporal power and the spiritual pri macy, whether we consider the latter in the very concep tion of its nature or in its necessary exercise." Then follows a clear and rapid exposition of the Ca tholic doctrine on the divine institution of the Supreme Pastorate in the Church, and of the end for which this 202 LIFE OF LEO XIII. supreme teaching and governing power in spirituals was made a concrete, living, and immortal organism on earth. This " divine principle of holiness and truth," incarnate in a manner in the Roman Pontiff, cannot be the subject of any huraan power. For it is this living, ruling principle which " raaintains in their unity and integrity the Church and religion. Besides, can it be intelligible that the living interpreter of the divine law and will should be placed under the jurisdiction of the civil authority, which itself derives all its own strength and authority from the same divine will and law ? . . ." " The Church is the Kingdora of Christ ; . . . can the head of this kingdom, without unreason, become the sub ject of a raere earthly potentate? . . ." The Church has for its function to direct humanity toward its supernatural destiny, its last end ; the civil power is only charged with providing and securing the immediate purpose of the pre sent life — peace, security, order, plenty. Is it in accordance with the dictates of reason that what is final should be made subordinate to what is intermediary — that the end should be raade to accord with the means, not the means with the end ? " It is a truth attested by faith, by reason, by our own experience, that the happiness of the present life, over which preside the kings of the earth, ... is only a raeans for procuring the life eternal. . . . For procur ing the sure attainment of this life eternal watches ever more this High-Priest, who hath received from Christ the mission of guiding humanity toward the everlasting feli city. . . . See, then, what upsetting of ideas it would be to raake of this High-Priest of the Catholic Church, the Ro raan Pontiff, the subject of any earthly power." This is a raost adrairable sketch of the development of the teraporal power of the Papacy. Christ wished to make the worid understand that the foundation and propagation of His Church was not the work of any huraan power. Hence in the eariy ages " the Popes had not the indepen dence of sovereignty, but that of raartyrdora only. . . . During the first centuries they were in fact the subjects of THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY A NECESSITY. 2O3 lay sovereigns ; but we cannot conceive a single instant during which this state of subjection was imposed on them by right. The supreme spiritual power of the Pontificate bore within itself from its very birth the germ of its tem ¦ poral power. With the spontaneous development of the former, the latter also continued to develop itself in space and time, in accordance with the external conditions amid which it grew. . . . '¦ We see in history how the ample donations, the vast possessions, and the acts of ci\il jurisdiction exercised by the Roman Pontiffs are things whic'n are traced back so far as to bring us to the first centuries of our era. In no other way can we explain the extraordinary phenomenon of a power which came to be placed in their hands with out their knowing it, against their will even, as the celebrat ed Count de Maistre expresses and proves it.* Where fore those who would have the Pope stripped of his civil principality would like to see the Church brought back to her infant condition, to the first stage of her existence. And this they would have done without considering that, in their conception, the ordinary condition corresponding to the nature of Christianity is that first initial stage which developed into that grandeur fore-ordained by Provi dence, who from out the Catacombs and the prisons led the Popes through the bloody path of martyrdom to the throne of the persecuting C^sars." Passing from a right conception of the spiritual pri macy of the Popes to its free and full exercise. Cardinal Pecci shows that this at present is not possible without the possession of a temporal sovereignty rendering the Pontiff independent of the influence of any one superior. * De Maistre, " Du Pape," 1. i. <-. vi. : " II n'y a pas en Europe de souverainete plus justifiable, s'il est permis de s'exprimer ainsi, que celle des Souverains Pontiles. Elle estcomme la loi divine, justificata in semet- ipsa. Mais ce qu'il y a de ve'ritablement etonnant, c'est de voir les Papes devenir souverains sans s'en apercevoir, et mSme, i parler exactement, malgre eux." See also in this connection Count Murphy's " Chair of Peter," 2d ed., pp. 158 and following. 204 LIFE OF LEO XIIL " The Pope has to guard intact in its integrity the de posit of the Faith ; he must preserve revealed truth from error and corruption among the faithful peoples. . . . He must be free to communicate without impediment with bishops, sovereigns, subjects, in order that his word, the organ and expression of the divine will, may have a free course all over the earth, and be there canonically an nounced. *' Now, imagine the Holy Father become the subject of a government, and deprived for a time of the liberty to exercise his apostolic ministry. Whenever his non licet or any decision of his sounded harsh to the ears of who ever was sovereign over him, or was opposed to that sove reign's views, or to what they call ' the reason of state,' forthwith should we hear of threats, of decrees, of im prisonment, of exile, in order to strangle the voice of truth at its birth. " Need we recall Liberius, sent into banishment by the Emperor Constantius for refusing to sanction the sentence against St. Athanasius? or John I., imprisoned by Theo dosius for not favoring the Arians ? or Silverius, exiled by the Empress Theodora because he would not receive to communion the heretical Anthiraus ? or Martin I., torn away from the Basilica of the Saviour in Rome, and sent to die among the barbarians of Pontus by the Emperor Constans, a Monothelite ? or, in fact, all the Pontiffs of the first centuries, who had no other way to fulfil their ministry than the courage to endure martyrdom ? " Then come the recent instances of Pius VI. and Pius VII. " But, in truth, there is no need of prisons or decrees of banishment to bind the hands of Popes who have become the subjects of another power. Everybody knows how easily a government can, even by indirect means, close up every avenue to publicity, cut off all means of communication, put all sorts of obstacles in the way of truth, and give false hood a free field. In such a situation how is the Pope to superintend the affairs without number of all the churches, to promote the extension of God's kingdom, to regulate PAPAL DECISIONS MUST BE UNTRAMMELED. 205 worship and discipline, to publish bulls and encyclicals, ta convene councils, to grant or to refuse canonical institution to bishops, to have at his command the congregations and courts which are necessary for the management of so many weighty affairs, to keep off schisra, to prevent the spread of public heresies, to decide religious disputes, to speak freel)- to rulers and peoples, to send nuncios and ambassadors, to conclude concordats, to employ censures, to regulate, in fact, the consciences of two hundred millions of Catholics scattered all over the earth, to preserve inviolate dogmas and morals, to receive appeals from all parts of the Chris tian world, to judge the causes thus subraitted, to enforce the execution of the sentences pronounced — to fulfil, in one word, all his duties, and to maintain all the sacred rights of his primacy ? " Here, then, is what they are airaing at by taking from the Pope his temporal power: they mean to render it im possible for him to exercise his spiritual power." The demonstration is a complete one. But there is another side to the question. If the Pope, as the suprerae teacher and ruler of the Church in spirituals, has both his rights to raaintain and his duties to fulfil with respect to the Christian world, Christians, in part, have also their in defeasible rights with regard to the free exercise of the Papal Primacy. " From the Sovereign Pontiff proceed decisions which directly concern what is deepest and most sacred in our consciences, our faith, our hope of eternal felicity. Every Catholic has a right, in matters of such an exalted nature, which transcend all the things of earth and of the present life, which nearly touch the interests of his own immortal soul, that the .sentence of the judge who is to guide him toward eternal life shall come freely from his lips — so freely that no one raay hint at the possibility of such a decision having been obtained through the dictation of another, or forced from the giver by sheer violence. " Every Catholic, therefore, demands that the Pope shall be placed in such a well-known condition of free- 206 LIFE OF LEO XIII. dora that not only he shall be independent, but that it shall be clear to the eyes of all that he is so. Now, how can the Catholics of all nations believe that the decisions of their parent and guide are thus free when he is the sub ject of an Italian, a German, a French, or a Spanish sove reign ? " To coraplete this triumphant demonstration Cardinal Pecci quotes from the acknowledged leaders and organs of the long conspiracy against Christianity and the temporal power of the Papacy in the last and the present centuries. Mazzini, writing to the London Globe in August, 1850, says: " The abolition of the temporal power manifestly carries along with it the emancipation of the human mind from the spiritual power." This, the Cardinal remarks, Mazzini frequently repeats in his " Pensiero e Azione." Frederick II. * wrote to Voltaire: "All the potentates of Europe, being unwilling to recognize the Vicar of Christ in a man subject to another sovereign, will each create himself a pa triarch in their own dominions. . . . Thereby every one of them will by degrees fall away from the unity of the Church, and end by having in his kingdom a religion of his own, just as he has a language of his own." To clear away the last vestige of doubt on this point the Cardinal quotes the official declaration of the Central Lodge of Carbonarisra in Italy : " ' Our final purpose is that of Voltaire and the French Revolution — the total annihila tion of Catholicisra and of the Christian idea itself.' This is the result airaed at by the anti-Christian schools opened in various Italian cities ; this is what is meant by the hostili ty fostered against the clergy ; this is what is intended by freeing (as they say) frora all theocratic tyranny ^ the legis lation, public instruction, marriage — the entire social body, in a word. This is the real significance of the resurrection of the country, of progress, and of liberty, as they under stand thera : to abolish Catholic worship, to suppress the religion of Christ, to starap out from all hearts the Chris *" Correspondence of Frederick IL," vol. xii. p. gg. f .Montanelli, " L'Impero il Papato," etc., Florence, 1859. AN ELOQUENT APPEAL TO THE PERUGIANS. 207 tian faith, and to plunge us once more in the darkness of heathenism. " The conspirators' plan is no longer a thing to be doubt ed of, except by such as wish to remain wilfully blind. But in what wa}- is it to be carried out ? In this — anti note it well, if }-ou would not fall into the snares of these evil men : by giving loud assurances, protestations, and solemn oaths that in no wise whatever do they intend to touch or to injure religion." The conclusion is a most eloquent appeal to the ances tral faith and the ancestral devotion of the Perugians to the Holy See and its Pontiffs : " There is no middle course. Either we have to stand faithful to Christ, to His Church, to that Church's visible Head, and against the enemies of our religion, or to take part with these against God and His Church. " It is no longer a raatter of policy ; it is a raatter of conscience. We cannot continue to hesitate between Christ and Belial. . . . " Would any one among you prefer to espouse the cause of the enemies of Christ's Vicar? This would be to deny the traditions of your forefathers ; it would be, to use the words of the Perugian Statute-Book, * ' to be come degenerate sons of ancestors of the noblest blood.' Not only were these ancestors of yours most devoted to the Faith, but they resolved that their own bodies should be a bulwark to defend the teraporal dorainion of the Holy See. "When the Ghibelline and Guelph factions had arisen in Italy, Perugia reraained ever faithful to the Popes. When these were obliged by popular turbulence to leave Rorae r *The Cardinal in a note refers to the year 727, when the Em'peror Leo the Isaurian, in his insane war against the Holy Images, attacked and per secuted Gregory II. The Perugians spontaneously and unanimously es poused the cause of the Pope, and bound themselves "by a solemn oath to defend the Pontiffs life and his State for the future, and to place them selves and all their interests under his care" — Solemni sacramento se Ponti- ficis vitam Statumque in perpetuum defensuram, ejusque in potestate rebus omnibus futuram curavit (MS. in Dominicini Library, Perugia). 2o8 LIFE OF LEO XIIL they found in Perugia a secure abode, * and a place where the conclaves could be held in perfect liberty. -f- This fidelity shone forth wonderfully during the reign of Alexander IV., who was wont to call your ancestors ' the stout champions and the chosen defenders of the Church, the rivals in courage and constancy of soul of the generous Maccabees.' % "Your history," the Cardinal goes on to say, "is full of the splendid deeds done to combat the enemies of the Church and to reduce to obedience her rebellious posses sions. So deep were in these men's souls the spirit of reli gious faith and the love for the Papacy ! Oh ! if these could only come forth from the peace of the tomb, with what contempt they would treat the advances of whoso- * See Sigonio, De Regno Italico, I. iii. " This," Cardinal Pecci says in a note, " is made remarkably clear by what one reads in the proemium to each of the Statutes of the Colleges of Arts (Assemblies of Guilds), and especially in the Public Statute-Book of (Republican) Perugia, where, among other things, is the following declaration : ' Dimissis igitur alienigenis et privatis aflfectibus, Guelphis et Sedi Apostolicae contrariis, quicumque intra Augusta; Civitatis racenia, illiusque excultum et fecundum agrum, se parentesve suos ortos esse dixerit, hanc Guelpham partem et S.-mctam Se- dem Apostolicam profiteatur, illis adhaereat, ipsas amplectatur et foveat, et ab antique nobilissimoque Perusinorum sanguine non degeneret.' — Wherefore, setting aside all foreign and private affections opposed to the Guelphs and the Holy See, whosoever can say that he or his parents were born within the walls of ihis city of Augusta-Perugia or within her well-cultivated and fertile territory, must openly declare himself for, attach himself to, em brace, and cherish this Guelphic party and the Holy Apostolic See, and not degenerate from the ancient and most noble blood of the Perugians" (vol. i. of the Statutes, Rub. 473). \ Conclaves in Perugia. — Innocent III. having died in Perugia, Hono- rius III. was there elected to succeed him ; so after the death there of Ur ban IV., Clement IV. was elected there ; again, Martin IV. died there, and there Honorius IV. was elected in his place. In 1294 was chosen in Pe rugia the successor of Nicholas IV. (St. Celestine V.) Finally, after the death there of Benedict XL, Clement V. was chosen in the same city to succeed him. X Alexander IV. (1254-61) addresses his letter of praise " to the Po- destd, Captain, Council, and Communi of Perugia." They had on the present occasion defended the Pontiff and the Holy See against Manfred, Duke of Tarentum ; the Pope gives their constant fidelity and valor ex traordinary and merited praise. A NOBLE LETTER TO PIUS IX. 2O9 ever should be planning the spoliation of the Common Father of the faithful and the suppression of all liberty for the Church ! " On October 26, 1S61, the Piedmontese Minister of Worship, Signor JMiglietti, issued a circular letter to the bishops and clergy, the object of which was either to frighten or to bribe them to renounce their allegiance to Pius IX., to gi\-e up the cause of the temporal power, and to declare for the Kingdom of Italy. II. FIDELITY TO PIUS IX. It was siraply a provocative to political treason as well as to religious schism. Cardinal Pecci and his brother-bishops were not to be caught by such flims)- artifices, nor to be overawed by any penalty the triumphant Revolution could inflict. Their ar^swer was a joint letter, drawn up by the Cardinal, signed by himself and his colleagues, and sent to the Holy Father. It was a document which would send a thrill of religious pride throughout the length and breadth of Italy. This was one of the first acts of noble and resolute re sistance which the Cardinal and his colleagues opposed to the progress and power of impiety and revolutionism. " Most Holy Father," they said, " in the fierce and protracted storra which at this time agitates the Church so fearfully, and which causes so rauch anxiety to the great heart of your Holiness, we, who are the copartners of your solicitude and the sharers of all your pain, have had to bewail, as we do still bewail, the unceasing efforts made to cause the ruin of our populations, to separate them from ynur fatherly rule, and to divide thera still raore from the centre of Catholic faith. To carry out this purpose no sort of seduction or deceit has been left untried. After promot ing or openly favoring irreligion and libertinism by the un restricted diffusion of pestilential books, of erroneous doc trines and heterodox teachings, they are now plying the 2 I O LIFE OF LEO XIII. clergy with provocatives and enticements aiming to detach them from their lofty duties and from the obedience due to their prelates, so as then to use them as instruments for their own guilty designs. " And as all these attempts met with an insurmount able obstacle in the firm and unaniraous zeal of the episco pal body, they have now again raade these the object of new assaults, undiscouraged by the partial endeavors made to break down the constancy of many of our venerated brethren in the revolutionized provinces of Italy. Defama tions, insults, threats, confiscation, iraprisonraent, banish raent having failed, they have had recourse to the disloyal pens of prevaricating priests to plead, in their turn, the cause of the present Revolution. And seeing how little heed was paid to the apologetic declaraations of these men, which died away and were lost like the last sounds of a brass bell, it has been lately deeraed proper that an official act (of the minister) should be directed toward weakening the fidelity of the bishops. It aims to detach them from you and from the cause of the Supreme Pontificate, and, setting forth old accusations, it seeks to pledge them to acts of approbation and adhesion toward all that has been accomplished against the inviolable laws of justice and re ligion, and against the rights of the Holy See. " They pretend, in fact, that the clergy should recognize both in right and in fact the boasted restoration of a na tionality as understood by the revolutionists, and which is the result of conspiracy, deception, injustice, and sacrilege. They demand that the clergy, like every other social class and institution, should be subject, in the discharge of their mission, to the dictation of the state — just as if the priest hood was the offspring of the political power, and that from it and not frora God was derived the mission to preach the truth and teach the nations. " They take it as a crirae that the clergy should show such patient resignation in enduring such storms of misfor tune, so many humiliations and oppressions of every kind, taking it for granted that they ought to be the panegyrists The Tiber: St. PETER'S IN THE DISTANCE! CASTLE AND BRIDOE OF ST. ANQELO. 2 I 2 LIFE OF LEO XIII. and co-operators of a policy which their conscience reproves, which the' law of God conderans. " The clergy are promised, in order to bribe and attract them, pledges and assurances of being left at peace in the exercise of their religious ministrations — as if the sad suc cession of hostile raeasures and usurpations consummated up to the present raoment did not sufficiently unmask the hideous illusions and disloyalty of such promises. . . . "They are offered, as the basis of reconciliation, to accept the condemned and fatal system of the separation of Church and state, which, being equivalent to divorcing the state from the Church, would force Catholic society to free itself from all religious influence. . . . " The tendency of this last intrigue is patent enough. It is calculated that the clergy of Italy, violating their own duties, and separating theraselves from their lawful pastors, and from you principally. Most Holy Father, who are their Supreme Chief and Ruler, should abase themselves to legiti- raize and sanction the acts accomplished by the Revolu tion, and thereby become the advocate and accomplice of the total spoliation and destruction of the sacred sove reignty of the Church, which they are now planning so noisily. " We, perceiving with deep grief what refined artifice the conspirators have had recourse to during these last raonths in order to mature their design, have felt the ne cessity of examining and fortifying our relations of subjec tion and union with Your Holiness and with the Apostolic Chair. And therefore it is that, while others among our venerable brothers in the episcopal office, either by acts or by their writings, manifest openly their rejection and ab horrence of this governmental act, we, on the other hand, have rather followed the impulse of filial affection by lift ing toward you our eyes and voice in this new calamity, to signify anew most solemnly our perfect adhesion to your teachings and to the glorious resistance which you, al though saddened and opposed in so many ways by unwor thy children, have made so courageously for the triumph UNSWERVING FIDELITY OF THE EPISCOPA TE. 2 I3 of religion, of justice, and of the sacred rights of the Holy See. " This declaration of our sentiments and purpose, b)- which we glory to be always with you and for >'ou, being thus made public, shall be an eloquent argument, giving a peremptory answer to ever}- flattering advance, solicitation, and threat. Faithful to the obligations which we took on ourselves with our episcopal trust, faithful as well to the oath taken on the day of our consecration, we protest that in you, the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the visible Head of His Church, we venerate with unchangeable respect the centre of unity of the faith, the depositary and the infallible teacher of all revealed truth which pertains to the spiritual destinies and the eternal salvation of man kind. From this divine teaching authority Christian so ciet}- derives its light and its form. And when the over bearing might of the world, in order to supplant it, pre sumes to enter the sanctuary and to irapose on men a fic titious and deceptive morality, it is time that it should hear us repeat: 'We raust obey God rather than raen.' " In you [we also revere] the supreme regulator of the discipline of the Church, on whom alone the episcopal body and the inferior clergy have to depend in all that regards the exercise of their mission and the relations of the Church with civil society. We therefore sovereignly deplore both the pretension of our modern politicians, who endeavor to subject to their bondage all ecclesiastical offi ces, and the blindness of those priests who, forgetful of their august calling, allowed themselves to be won over by blandishments, and, dazzled by the false promises of the world, have strayed away from the sheepfold of Christ. "And with regard to the sacred sovereignty and the temporal dominions, against which so many conspiracies and expeditions are planned, we accept no other senti ments and declarations than those of the Church herself, attested even in our day by the unanimous suffrage of the Cathohc episcopate, and proclaimed by ourselves in our pastoral letters to our diocesans and in many addresses '2 1 4 LIFE OF LEO XIII. on the sarae subject laid before the pontifical throne. While, in the sense of the definitions of the cecumenical councils, we acknowledge the inviolability of sacred en dowments and ecclesiastical possessions, we also consider this sacred sovereignty to be a special ordinance of divine Providence which no human power may lawfully assail — an ordinance directed toward protecting the independence of the Church, toward securing to her visible Head the fulness of the liberty necessary for the proper exercise of the supreme authority bestowed on hira by God over the whole Catholic world. . . . " In the profession of such principles and convictions, and in fidelity to the Apostolic See and to your august person, we desire to be, with the divine help, ever firm in the face of whatever may befall us, of dangers and contra dictions to which we may be exposed ; nay, more, the greater these may be, the more do \\e feel the duty of standing at your side. Most Holy Father, and to find in your invincible constancy, in your serenity of soul amid all the tribulations which press upon you, inspiration and in creasing comfort in the fulfilment of our pastoral office." When Pius IX. will have passed away, and Piedmon tese rule will restrict, even within the Vatican, the liberty and jurisdiction of his successor, how sweet it will be to that successor to receive such encouragements from his brother-bishops all over the world as are contained in the brave and noble sentiments we have just been read ing! CHAPTER XV. THE B.ITTLE WITH IRRELIGION RAGES FIERCELY — CARDI NAL PECCI HEADS THE EPISCOPAL lloDV IX DEFEXD- IXG (l.) THE LIBERTY OF THE CHURCH. '¦ TURING the first fourteen years of Cardinal Pecci's ^LJ episcopal labors in Perugia he had been most zeal ous, as we have seen, in preparing both priests and people among his flock for the trials which he feared, if he did not foresee, were ine\itable in the near future. The foremost position among the hierarch}- of Umbria, given him, fiom his first appointment, by his learning and his great repu tation, and afterward confirmed by his elevation to the cardinalate, threw upon him the labor, if not the respon- sibilit}-, of leading his brother-bishops in every public movement raade for the defence of religion and the au thority of the Holy See. What has been said in the last chapters raay enable the reader to judge how difficult, not to say morally impossi ble, it was for the pastors of souls to fulfil their appointed duty or exercise their needful authority in spirituals in the face of the tyrannical and minute restrictions iraposed upon them in every direction and at every step by the Piedmon tese invaders. Let the readers of this book not feel surprised that we should use the word " invaders " here. In the Eng lish-speaking world, during the years 1859, i860, and 1861, non-Catholics, elated by the prospective downfall of the Papacy, rejoiced at every step in advance of the revo lutionary forces under Garibaldi, or the Piedmontese arms on land and sea against the States of the Church, garri soned by a few thousand raen, barely sufficient to maintain order and to repress the perpetual outbreaks caused at almost every point by the secret societies. There had 2x6 LIFE OF LEO XIII. been for the Pontifical government but little trouble in keeping its own populations quiet, if England and France had not been either urging on Piedmont to seize on all the States of the Peninsula or encouraging directly Cavour and Victor Emmanuel to invade the neighboring independent and sovereign principalities, in a time of peace, without any provocation, and to carry out the plans of a dynastic arabition, cloaked over by the pretence of Italian patriot ism and the satisfaction of the national aspirations. Cavour — as his published Life and Memoirs now amply prove — used Mazzini and Garibaldi, with their formidable and wide-spread organization of revolutionary clubs, as the forerunners and auxiliaries of the Piedmontese army and navy in this unholy and unblessed war. These dark asso ciations, with the revolutionary, anti-social, and irreligious passions with which they had filled every portion of the Peninsula, every city and town, were like the dynamite placed in some mighty reef beneath the waves which the hand of the engineer had scientifically mined and prepar ed. Mazzini had made all ready for the explosion ere, in May, i860. Garibaldi had landed a single soldier at Mar sala, or before, later in the season, Fanti had sent his army toward the Marches and Umbria, or Persano had received orders to co-operate by bombarding Ancona. Napoleon III. had his troops in Rome, feigning to protect the inde pendence of the Holy See and the inviolability of the ter ritory still left to it, while he was helping Cavour to carry out effectively the Piedmontese plans, and betraying into the hands of the invading generals the little Papal army, commanded by the most heroic and accomplished soldier France had known since the first Napoleon. It was an unholy war and a cowardly war, carried on by base intrigues and by means as unhallowed as those which Antiochus of old used to subjugate the reunited remnants of the Twelve Tribes and to crush out in the souls of a small but brave people their faith in the living God. It is impossible to understand either the times or country amid which Cardinal Pecci lived and battled for A PROPAGANDA OF IMPIETY A.XD IMMORALITY. 2 I J religion without understanding the enemies he had to contend with, the ends for which these fought, and the weapons they used against the Church, her chief, her priesthood and faithful people. On November the 21st, i860, the archbishops and bishops of the Marches sent to the Piedmontese gover nor or commissary-general an eloquent remonstrance enu merating the effects of the regime introduced b}- him and his subordinates, and the means taken by them to alienate the people of these provinces from their allegiance to God and the faith of their fathers. A few extracts will paint the situation. HOW THE ENEMIES OF GOD AND MAN GO TO WORK IN" ITALV. " Our hearts," they say, " cruelly wounded and torn,. are filled with grief and desolation by the thought of the spiritual ruin which threatens our children, our flocks, pur chased by the blood of the Lamb without spot. Never theless, after all the contradictions, the trials, the obstacles we have had to encounter, not one spark of charity, of zeal, of pastoral and fatherly solicitude has been quenched in our souls — we solemnly affirra it, with our anointed hands on our hearts ; a,nd, with the help of God's grace, these sentiraents shall never depart from us through fault of ours. " We scarcely believe our own eyes or the testiraony of our own ears when we see or hear of the excesses, the abominations, the disorders witnessed in the chief cities of our respective dioceses, to the shame and horror of the beholders, to the great detriment of religion, of decency,. of public morality, since the ordinances against which we protest deprive us of all power to protect religion and morality or to repress the prevailing crimes and licentious ness. " The public sale, at nominal prices, of mutilated trans- 2i8 LIFE OF LEO XIII. lations of the Bible, of pamphlets of every description saturated with pestilential errors or infamous obscenities, is permitted in the cities which, a few months ago, had never heard of these scandalous productions. . . . The impunity with which the most horrible blasphemies are uttered in public, and the worse utterance of expressions and sentiments that breathe a hellish wickedness ; the ex position, the sale in public, and the diffusion of statuettes, pictures, and engravings which brutally outrage piety, purity, the comraonest decency ; the representation in our city theatres of pieces and scenes in which are turned into ridicule the Church, Christ's iramaculate Spouse, the Vicar of Christ, the ministers of religion, and everything which piety and faith hold to be most dear ; in fine, the fearful licentiousness of public manners, the odious devices re sorted to for perverting the innocent and the young, the evident wish and aim to raake iramorality, obscenity, un- cleanness triumph among all classes — such are, your Excel lency, the rapid and faint outlines of the scandalous state of things created in the Marches by the legislation and discipline so precipitately imposed on them by the Sar dinian government. " We appeal to your Excellency, . . . could we remain silent and indifferent spectators of this iraraense calamity without violating our raost sacred duty?" Such was the courageous and indignant voice which arose from the episcopal body in the Marches. It soon had a worthy echo on the other side of the Apennines. There the bishops of Umbria found an eloquent mouth piece and intrepid interpreter in the Cardinal Archbishop of Perugia. Undismayed by the outrages and sufferings which his old schoolmate and friend, the saintly Cardinal de Angelis, Archbi.sbop of Ferrao, was raade to undergo for his resistance to Piedraontese rule. Cardinal Pecci con centrated all the energy of his character, style, and convic tions into the irapressive document frora which we are about to quote. It sounds like the soleran act of men who know that by publishing to the world this grand pro- JOINT PROTEST OF THE UMBRIAN HIERARCHY. 2 I9 test they are drawing on themselves the worst penalties which unlawful and unrestrained might can inflict. Let the reader judge whether or not Cardinal Pecci was defending the Christian religion, assailed in its \ciy essence : "In the year of salvation one thousand eight hundred and sixty, in the month of Deceniber: " We, the undersigned, to whom, albeit unworthy, the Eternal Priest and Pastor Christ Jesus, through His Vicar on earth, the Roman Pontiff, has committed the care and government of the churches over which we are set, in con sequence of the proclamation, which has just been made in these provinces of Urabria in the name of the Sardi nian government, of certain decrees which bear on reli gious interests and ecclesiastical discipline, find ourselves impelled by our pastoral office to raake freely and solemnly the following declaration of our sentiments : " It is a grievous error against Catholic doctrine to pretend that the Church is the subject of any earthly power and bound by the same economy and relations which regulate civil society. The Church is not a human institution, nor is it a portion of the political edifice, al though it is destined to proraote the welfare of the men among whom it lives. It affirms that from God come directly its own being, its constitution, and the necessary faculties for attaining its own sublime destiny, which is one different (frora that of the state) and altogether of a supernatural order. Divinely ordered, with a hierarchy of its own, it is by its nature independent of the state. "This native independence, this condition, so vital to the Church, of being able to extend the blessings of its heaven ly mission, is a thing which has ever been respected in the midst of the illustrious populations of Umbria whom God placed under our episcopal care. Beneath the overshadow ing protection of the Pontifical governraent, which we shall ever acknowledge as the work of Providence, created for the indispensable and free exercise of the power of the 2 20 LIFE OF LEO XIII. Church, it had not to dread the obstacles and fetters im posed on it elsewhere by a secular policy either suspicious or unbelieving. " Wherefore raost painful to our hearts and most bane ful to the spiritual interests of our flocks is every innova tion which, under the name and glitter of modern civiliza tion, without any dependence on the Supreme Pastor, peo ple pretend to introduce among us by these recent decrees, which gravely wound the liberty of the Church, which make no account of ancient, raost sacred, and ever-revered in terests, which set aside and annul inviolable prerogatives and institutions. " Whosoever considers the spirit of these decrees must perceive at the first glance that here in our country alsO' it is resolved to make the Church the slave of the state, and to subject and co-ordinate her divine mission to the low views of a worldly policy. ... " We observe, besides, with a sad surprise, that these innovations are proclaimed in the name of a government which holds by its fundamental law ' the Catholic, Apos tolic, and Roraan religion as the sole religion of the state,' and which, when it ordered its arraies to occupy these provinces, declared its purpose to be ' to restore in Italy the principles of the moral order.' " A Catholic governraent contradicts itself every time that it lays its hand on the sanctuary and invades the sacred province of the priesthood ; every tirae it changes by its own arbitrary act the external conditions of the Church, and so straitens the latter as to reduce it to a state of bondage. Nor can the purpose of reforraing the discipline of the Church give a color of legitiraacy to such an unrighteous undertaking. " Deterrained not to give up the guardianship of the sacred rights entrusted to our keeping, we lift our voices, and in presence of God and of men we protest loudly against all and every the innovations and ordinances which wound the rights and liberties of the Church, as embodied in the recent decrees. In especial, moreover, . . . THE CHURCH'S SUFFERINGS DEPICTED. 22 1 " We protest against such as regard the persons belong ing to the Church, by the suppression of ecclesiastical tri bunals. . . . " We protest against such as are ad\-erse to the institu tions of the Church by subjecting to the censure of the 3tate every ecclesiastical provision and disposition ; by withdrawing frora the direction and care of the bishops the pious foundations, even when deri\ing their origin from the Church itself or entrusted to the Church by the will of the donors ; by prohibiting all care and interfer ence of the bishops with the establishments of education and instruction, compelling the rectors of parishes to do without sacramental registers and the books necessary to their pastoral ministry. . . . " We must deplore the vexations committed against priests, accompanied by reprimands, threats, arrest, impri sonment, and banishment. We deplore the violation of the cloister, the taking possession of sacred asylums, the seques tration and suppression of religious communities. We raust deplore the occasions given so frequently to the clergy to engender dissension and scandal, and the seductions held out to them to tempt thera away from the due subjection to their superiors. We must deplore the licentiousness of the theatre and the press, and the continual snares laid to surprise pious souls, to underraine faith by circulating in famous pamphlets and heterodox writings, and by the de- clarriations of fanatical preachers of impiety. . . . " And we raake these declarations in order not to be tray the most sacred rights, which we are bound to protect by the solemn oaths we have taken, and by the strict duties prescribed by our office and our conscience, inasmuch as our silence would take the scandalous color of connivance or of criminal weakness ; and because at the sound of our voice, at the publicity given to this remonstrance, the faith ful will take heart, for they deplore bitterly in their secret -souls the wrongs and the ruin caused to their mother. " Christian charity bids us never to despair of the re pentance and araendraent of our neighbor, and to oppose 2 2 2 LIFE OF LEO XIII. the armor of prayer to those who attack us. We do pray for thera, and offer up our petitions that their repentance raay help to render raore glorious the certain triumph of the Church, to which faith teaches us, the divine protection can never fail, and that even the gates of hell shall never prevail against her." Signed by the Cardinal Archbishop-Bishop of Perugia, the Archbishop of Spoleto, the Bishops of Terni, Foligno, Citta di Castello, Assisi, Nocera, Citta del la Pieve, Gabbio, Todi, Amelia, Narni, and Rieti.* The war against God, against Christian society, against the dearest, truest interests of humanity and country, had been inaugurated by the Italian Revolution. This was the coup d'essai by which the anti-Christian and anti-social combined forces were trying their power, first, against the Papacy and Catholicism in the very seat of their authority, before they tried their hand, as they are now doing in Belgiunn and in France and in Switzerland ; Gerraany and Great Britain are to follow. II. THE NOBLE DEFENCE OF DOMESTIC SOCIETY. Cardinal Pecci stands forth at the head of his brethren, organizing and leading the resisting forces, whose only arms are truth and justice. It is a sublime struggle ; it cannot be a doubtful one. One of the most baneful innovations introduced by the Piedmontese invaders into a country where for so many centuries no religion had prevailed save the Catholic reli gion alone, regarded raarriage, which was entirely laicized, being raade a civil transaction subject to the sole laws of the state, and independent in every way of any religious consecration or formality. Indeed, among a population * " Scelta di Atti Episcopall del Cardinale Gioacchino Pecci, Arci- vescovo Vescovodi Perugia, ora Leone XIIL, Sommo Pontefice," Roma, 1879. PP- 301-305. IdlH'jiiSi'lcii E O CC u.os > !24 LIFE OF LEO XIII. which had been exclusively Catholic for fifteen hundred years, the subversion of all Church discipline and regula tions was so sudden and so thorough that, with a stroke of the pen, the pastors of souls were forbidden to keep parish registers, and the records of births, raarriages, and deaths were transferred to the raunicipal officers. The whole sacraraental systera of the Church, the entire order of priestly duty in its most sacred ministrations, were set .aside as abruptly and as peremptorily as if the change were taking place in one of the Feejee Islands, where the inhabi tants had been fetichists and cannibals in the last genera tions, and their present conquerors imposed anew the old ancestral customs. The archbishops and bishops of Umbria had there upon issued a declaration drawn up by Cardinal Pecci, and which reraains one of the noblest and raost eloquent monu ments of episcopal independence and courage of that dark period. But the Cardinal did not rest satisfied with this joint action of himself and brethren. He addressed him self directly to the king. " Sire," he writes, " the extraordinary an'bmaly of civil marriage imposed on the populations of Umbria by a de cree of the Sardinian commissary, the Marquis Pepoli, dated October 31, i860, was not then fully understood and appreciated in its entire reach and consequences. The Umbrian hierarchy, after witnessing for more than a year a lamentable succession of sacrilegious usurpations and shameful acts, could have drawn from these alone a suffi cient reason for mourning and trembling for the fate of their people. . . . They did not delay to raise their voice in deploring it, and in the joint protest sent to the govern ment in December, i860, they denounced the innovation as one of the most baneful among the many carried out to the detriment of religion and the sacred rights of the Church. " Enlightened, raoreover, by the guilty results of this deplorable change, the bishops, after an experience of several raonths, have published lately a doctrinal ' Decla- A DEFENCE OF CIIRISI IAN MARRIAGE. J25 ration,' in which the innovation is subraitted to examina tion, its irreligious character is laid bare, and the capital points of its discordance with Catholic doctrine are placed in evidence. " Your Majesty will perrait me to place in your hands a copy of this ' Declaration.' For it is exceedingly import ant that you should know and see in its full light an act of such serious consequtence, done by the caprice of an extra ordinary official, who carae hither, after the railitary occu pation of these provinces, to raake laws in your royal name. It is an act which still works out its effects, corrupting consciences and the public morality ; it now requires a remedy, which can only come frora the power frora which it emanates. "Your Majesty must bear with me if I, who, though the last in merit among my venerable colleagues, ara bound by stricter ties to the Catholic cause and the Holy Roman Church, the universal teacher and guardian of the divine rights, do now endeavor to place briefly beneath your eyes the inconsistency and deformity of this anomaly, consid ered in its civil and religious bearings. . , . "... As to its religious aspect, which is the raost ira portant, your Majesty needs only, in order to weigh well the gravity of this act, to reraeraber what you witnessed yourself in 1851 and 1852 while the projected law of civil marriage was discussed in the Piedmontese Chambers. . . . '¦ If your Majesty will only now take the trouble to read calmly the few pages of our ' Declaration,' you will feel certain that this projected law, which it is pretended is a boon to Umbria, is of this (anti Christian) character. . . This is shown by the fundamental conception of the law itself, which is based on the theory of the separability of the contract frora the sacrament. By dissociating mar riage from every religious element it is given features of a merely human character. And by overlooking the divine mstitution and economy which regulate marriage in its very essence, the law takes upon itself exclusively to ar range what is most intimate in the matter, as if it regu- 2 26 LIFE OF LEO XIIL lated only an ordinary transaction of civil origin and com petence. " This anti-Christian character is shown by the source itself frora which the law derives. For it must either come from pagan naturalism, which knew nothing of the fact that God had raised the matriraonial contract to the dignity of a sacrament ; or frora the heretical corruptions of Protestantism, which, having troubled the very springs of revealed truth, rejected the sanctity of the matrimo nial union as belonging to Christian dogma; or, again, from the systematic unbelief of our modern Socialists, who aim at overturning from the foundations the entire social and religious orders. " This character is also shown by the motives on which the law is based, which are not only futile and insufficient, when there is question of justifying an act of this moment, but reveal a purpose sadly out of accord with Catholic doctrine. " They pretend to assert thereby the fulness of the state jurisdiction, and, under the cloak of 'civilization' and 'progress,' to set about transforming God's own work: they command men's consciences to accomraodate them selves to a factitious tie which Christian doctrine declares to be illicit and raost criminal apart from the sacrament. " With treacherous phrases about liberty of conscience and separation of the state from tlie Church, it takes ad vantage to weaken the bonds of religion, to accredit indif- ferentism, and to please the heretic and the unbeliever by a fashion of marriage suited to their minds. " Under the specious and lying color of abuses and re straints it censures the venerated rules of Christian juris prudence, the wise discipline of the Church, confirmed by the decrees of councils and by the uninterrupted practice of so many ages. "Therefore it was that Pius IX., writing to your Ma jesty on this projected law, concluded his letter with these meraorable words : " ' We wrote to your Majesty that the law is not Catholic; CONSEQUENCES OF AN ANIL-CHRISTIAN LA W. 227 and if the lazv is not Catholic, the clergy are obliged to tell the people so, even at the risk of incurring the threatened penal ties. Your Majesty, ive also speak to you in the name of Christ Jesus, zohose J '/ear zee are, hozv unzvorthy soever ; and zee say to you in His Name, Do not sanction this lazv, zvhich is pregnant zvith a thousand disorders. . . . We give ourselves up zvillingly to the hope of seeing you support the rights of the Church, protect her ministers, and free her people from the peril of being subjected to certain lazvs zvhich bear on their face the decay of religion and of the morality of nations. ..." " As to the consequences of this law, . . . cases of legal concubinage frequently corae to our notice, to our grief and the ruin of souls. And it is supremely painful to re flect that the raore easily such things happen, the raore difficult is it to repair the evil, on account of the condition of state bondage and interdiction to which the priestly ministry is condemned in our day. For it is the law itself which frequently causes and authorizes such things. . . . " Have we not seen the abuse and prevarication of legal might carried to the point of compelling the parish priests, under threat of fine and imprisonment, to bestow their sacred offices in giving the sacramental consecration to the marriage immediately after the civil ceremony, without taking any account whatever of the forras and discipline of the Church? " Have we not seen the officials use a studious or in considerate precipitancy in adraitting parties to the civil ceremony, and then, having discovered thereafter impedi ments which nullified the contract, have they not displayed a careless connivance in tolerating that the incestuous couples, so ill-united even with respect to the civil act, should continue together in their unlawful intercourse? " Have we not also seen attempts made to subject the administration of the sacraments and the direction of raen's consciences to the official censure and the dictation of the state? " These are dreadful facts, of which I speak of ray own certain knowledge ! 2 28 LIFE OF LEO XIII. " Assuredly a law of this kind, and bearing such per nicious fruits, is not a Catholic law. The natural dictates of raoral honesty are offended by it ; and, in the long run, it raust end in degrading Christian society and cause that 'religious and raoral decadence' which our enlightened Pontiff deplored in predicting it to your Majesty. . . . •' If this law, therefore, which is so raanifestly anti-Ca- thoHc, comes to be promulgated in your royal name, and by a governor sent by royal ordinance to rule these Pontifi cal provinces, the Catholic hierarchy has an evident right to expect that your Majesty will apply a remedy to the grievance, and to press you to repair it. "... There is only qiiestion here to insist on the ob servance of the rule that a delegate is inferior to the power which delegates him, and that all acts are void of juridical validity which the delegator had neither the right nor the intention to perform or to comraission his subordinate to do. " Let your Majesty do this act of justice to the Catho lic religion, the only true religion, the only one acknow ledged as such, and the only one professed in all Italy. Have Christian marriage restored speedily to its religious liberty and its superhuman grandeur. Let the annoying exceptions cease which are so grievous a burden to the conscience of our people, and suppress that heterodox in novation which, by desecrating an august sacrament, viti ates in their principle the domestic and social relatio.ns, and is a great danger to the purity of faith and morals." * To this eloquent appeal we do not fear to add the con clusion of the united Remonstrance of the archbishops and bishops of Umbria, also the work of the same well-in spired hand. Statesraen and churchraen in America, warn ed by the fatal facilities of our divorce laws, will do well to read and ponder these pregnant considerations: "After these considerations our conscience cannot rest satisfied, nor can the zeal which we are bound to cherish * " Scelta," etc., pp. 470-78, Sept. 27, i86t. A GOLDEN Lesson FOR AMERICANS. 229 for the Catholic cause and for the well-being of Christianity in our midst, if we did not raake our words, with evangeli cal freedom, reach the ears of those who have bestowed their labors in this reforra, or who are to give it their care and support. It is still but a project. God grant that the truth, shining forth in its full light, raa}- penetrate and con vince every mind before such reform is sanctioned ! " We say, therefore : "A civil reforra regarding marriage which takes on itself, as does the present project, to regulate the validity of matrimony in a manner quite independent of and differ ing from the dictates of religion, necessarily involves a vio lation of Catholic dogma, an oppression of the Catholic conscience. " The sanctity [I'onesta] and force of the conjugal tie, in the estimation of Christians, are based on the law of nature and that of the Gospel, not on the formulas of the civil law. This is a truth of the divine, the absolute order, from which the Church can never depart ; and the conscience of a Catholic people can never be convinced of the contrary. It is not a matter of discipline, about which transactions might be made, or a question of form, about which one may lawfully disagree. " Under the pretext of claiming its own rights {rivendi- cazione) the state in our day is compelled to repudiate this dogmatic principle, to turn its back on its own traditions, and to violate the consciences of its subjects. " Can a reforra of this character ever be reconciled with the profession of the Catholic faith, of which the whole na tion is so proud ? Can a wise policy ever consent to ac cept an institution so hostile to the dorainant religion and to the prevailing belief — an institution which, discussed formerly in the Piedraontese Chambers, had there so un happy an issue, and which elsewhere turned out to be a source of miserable troubles, contentions, and corruption ? " The state has its own duties with regard to raarriage, but these only concern the external bearings of marriage connecting it with the civil society. The Church does not 230 LIFE OF LEO XIIL pretend to an exclusive fulness of jurisdiction, confining her claira to what God has committed to her as her inde feasible right in her nature as the rainister of His religion and the ruler of man in his relations with the Godhead— that is, the validity of the marriage tie, which belongs to the spiritual and divine order. "... Does the state wish to co-operate in preserving from the abuses of individual licentiousness the purity or legitimacy of marriage ? There is a way of doing so without invading others' rights. Let it combine with the Church that precious and sadly needed harmony of action which arranges and secures so admirably the social and religious interests of a nation ; let it show itself to be an ally, not an arbitrary master ; let it accept and sanction the sacred laws of the Church, irapose their observance on its subjects, even in externals, and it will thus infallibly attain its true purpose. ... " But let the state beware, and we beg it to beware, of putting thorns and fetters on the Catholic conscience, and of putting itself as a teacher in the place of the Church, the divine and only guide frora whom Catholics obtain the rules of morality and justice." * The Archbishop of Perugia could not, in the perils which daily and hourly grew around the Christian homes of Umbria, rest satisfied with demonstrating to the civil authorities the enormity of the evil they were committing; he made his voice heard in every one of these homes, in structing them on these dangers and their own Christian duties.III. CARDINAL PECCI ENLIGHTENING CHRISTIAN HOMRS AND FORMING CHRISTIAN HEARTS. In 1864 Cardinal Pecci, who had been the soul and the mouthpiece of the episcopate of Central Italy during the calamitous years which followed i860, issued in the form *June, i86i. "^\x\ Progetto di Matrimonio Civile, e%z.xa\-s:a.\.oii€X i^- teresse religiose. Dichiarasione, Scelta, pp. 308-342, THE CARDINAL ENLIGII lE.VING CHRISTIAN HOMES. 23 1 of his usual Lenten pastoral' a most remarkable, pregnant, instructive, and eloquent work, worthy of a great and zealous bishop. It bears for title " On the Current Errors against Religion and Christian Life." The works of mind, and more especially so those which treat of the dearest religious interests of mankind, arc like the rare and most precious gems which have their value in every civilized clime and win the adrairation of all true men. From this production of the Cardinal Archbishop of Perugia we detach a few passages, which our readers will prize as they would the most beautiful pearls of Coroman del taken frora a full casket and held up to thera to ex amine. Here is the preamble : " The priceless treasure of a frank profession of Catho lic faith is a thing too much to be envied and hidden away out of sight, in our days, that we should not guard it jeal ously against the traps and plots which are laid to steal it from us. . . . To a people like you, who had the fortune to be born Catholics, and who have ever had it at heart to remain so, the free and loving voice of your pastor must surely be grateful when it is raised to warn you of the dan gers which your religion runs, and to point out to you the ready means to avert them. " There is no need that we should spend many words to prove to you the existence and the magnitude of these dangers, and the unceasing labors bestowed to implant: even among you unbelief and heresy. The designs and proceedings of the propagators of irreligion are quite well known to you. They profit by the present conditions of our country to make war on the Catholic faith ; they en deavor to pervert radically its principles, and to upset all the practices of Christian life. . . . " See how these men would have you throw off from your minds all the dictates of faith, all bonds of subjection to God. They go about writing and proclairaing aloud : " ' Man is free in his own conscience ; he can embrace any religion he likes. Natural religion, that which reason dictates to each of us^ is all that we want ; we do not 232 LIFE OE LEO XtiL need either revelation or mysteries. Religion is a purely internal act ; it should exist in the heart and confine itself to the sphere of our spirit. It is quite enough for a man to behave himself like one who is honest and honored among his fellow-men ; as to religion, he can square his actions on his belief. Religion does not enter into the sphere of external conduct or into the social order; the interests of our spiritual being should be entirely separate frora those of our corporeal being.' " These theories are widely taught even among us, and, let us confess it, they not infrequently meet with favor and welcome. Thank God if the number be small indeed who renounce, to embrace thera, their Catholic profession! Nevertheless there are nurabers of the hesitating and the deceived who, thinking these theories to be comfortable and plausible, caress them in practice, give them their as sent, and, without perceiving it, live according to them. Hence ... a mortal indifferentism in matters of religion, a blind neglect and contempt of all that concerns the soul and regards the life to corae. . . ." Taking up in succession each of these capital errors, the Cardinal refutes thera in a raasterly way : " To all who speak to you of ' liberty of conscience ' say that without God there is no liberty. He raade man free and gifted with reason, but in so doing He iraposed on His creature obligations and dictated laws for hira, in order to prevent that native liberty and reason frora leading him astray. Araong these obligations, among these laws, stand first those that pertain to religion — namely, the worship and obedience which are due to God as the Supreme Author and Repairer of human nature. He has Himself deterrained and raade known to us in what manner we are thus to honor and serve Him. Nor is it left to the free will of man to refuse it, or to fashion for himself a form of worship and service such as he pleases to render. That worship, that religion alone is true, is good, which God Himself has raanifestly willed us to practice. After that it would be not only impious but monstrous to main- Pastoral on curre.vt errors. 233 tain every form of worship is acceptable and indifferent, that the human conscience is fice to adopt whichever forra it pleases and to fashion out a religion to suit itself. "What ! are they then things indifferent, dependent on our choice and good pleasure, these matters which we call truth and error, the divine glory, and God's dishonor ? " What ! can it then be a matter of indifference to raan to know God or to ignore Him, to revere Him or to wor ship His creatures, to serve Hira, as He bids us, or to re fuse His service? ..." Every one of the effata of irreligion or scepticisra is then made the heading of each successive section of this noble treatise, and utterly confuted. For instance : " The religion of the heart is enough for m.an. — Remark, I pray you, that this false axiom which cloaks the shame of the unbeliever serves also to the cowardly Catholic as a pre text for sacrificing the duties of his religion to the idol of human respect. God deserves and demands that man's whole being shall confess, worship and serve Hira, the Crea tor. This cannot be accoraplished by the heart alone, and by mere interior acts which remain concealed in the depths of the human soul. . . . " The new law of the Gospel, while teaching us to wor ship God in a manner raore perfect and more worthy of Him, ' in spirit and in truth,' also establishes and com mands special external observances — sacrifice, the sacra ments, prayer — not only as means of personal sanctifica tion, but as a solemn expression of religious worship. " Besides, honor is due to God, not merely as He is the Creator of individual raan, but as He is also the Author and Ruler of the huraan race as a whole. For if man in his individual capacity derives from Him as frora the First Cause, is sustained by His providence and directed by Him toward his proper destiny, even so is every human society. " So deeply rooted in the universal sentiment and con viction of mankind is the obligation of an outward and public manifestation of such worship, and the persuasion 234 LIFE OP LEO XIIL as well that no society can subsist without religion, that no people, how barbarous or degraded soever, has existed who did not confess this debt to the Godhead by erecting temples, instituting feasts, offering sacrifices, and decreeing honors." In the same lucid and convincing way does he dispose of the next axiom, that " It is religion enough to behave well and to do good to others." And so on to the end of this chain of capital errors. " We have until now," he continues, " discoursed to you of the principal errors which are propagated against our holy religion. . . . Now we feel ourselves impelled to place beneath your eyes the principal points on which is remarked in our day the decay of Christian morality. . . ." "Blasphemy" comes in the first place. It is treated with brief and masterly eloquence. Then the " Profana tion of the Sunday and Feasts of Obligation," " Public Immorality," " Bad Books," and " Defective Education." This last section deserves more than a passing men tion : " We should have too rauch to say on this subject, on which depend the direction and welfare of the present and of the coming generation. We need not lose time in prov ing the obligation and the importance for parents to edu cate their children well ; the voice of nature, the precepts of religion, and the sense of all mankind agree in affirming and inculcating this duty. " Still, to confess the truth, who is it that does not per ceive and deplore the neglect and falling-off in the dis charge of this duty which are evident in many Catholic families at this time, and that does not thence draw sad auguries for our future? Unwise and lazy parents do not know how to estimate the nobleness of the mission en trusted to them. They generally raeasure according to the calculations of a low and selfish interest the blessing of having children ; they do not at all think of the great debt which they contract toward God, frora the first day they become parents, to incre.?.3e in their offspring and to cou- PARENTAL DUTY OF EDUCA TING CHILDREN. 235 tinue the number of Ills true adorers; of that which they contract toward themselves to prepare and transmit an honored inheritance of good example and virtues ; of the debt contracted toward society to rear for it members la borious, moral, and edifying. " It is true that in our day another maxim is current bearing on this same subject — namel}-, ' To tlie state belongs the training of yout It.' Does this maxim avail to excuse the lamentable negligence of parents in our time? "The duty of education, inculcated by natural reason, is so essential to the parental character and authorit}' that they cannot decline its performance. The state au thority, by its place in the order of things, is not called upon to discharge this great parental duty, but to help the natural educators in their work, and to watch and protect the interior discipline and good direction of the family. " What are, in reality, the relations in which man is placed from his birth, as one of the beings in the order of creation? He comes into the world as God's creature, who has brought him into existence ; he is the child of those who have given hira temporal life ; he is ordained first toward religion and then toward his family ; his first duties are subjection and service to God, and dependence on his parents. The family is neither the creation nor the emana tion of civil society (or the state) ; the power of parents is not a concession of human law. The relations and duties which obtain between parents and children are anterior and superior to all human aggregation. " Man is indeed born sociable ; but belonging, before all, to the domestic and religious society, he only comes into the society of the state through the family and already prepared by the teaching of religion and under the guid ance of parental authority. Therefore is it that as in the matter of education only an auxiliary part can be attri buted to the state authority, so is it evident that the charge of educating remains as a burden they cannot decline on the conscience of the parents, who for that work are the ^36 LIFE OP LEO Xlll. representatives of God the Creator, and are invested with His authority. " If in our days all parents understood their duties in this light, and if, conceiving an adequate notion of the work they are commissioned to do, they instructed their children in time on the elevated duties and relations which every human being has to fulfil both in the domestic and the religious society, assuredly the state would be much the better for it. For no one can doubt that children who are submissive to parental authority and devoted to their family, that raen who have the fear of God and who are obedient to their religion, cannot fail to be also honored citizens and serviceable to their fellow-men." Then comes up the question of colorless or undenomi national education, which so raany parents are satisfied with. Cardinal Pecci's lurainous explanation leaves here no room for hesitation : "You must distinguish between 'education' and ' in- struction,' between the moral training and moulding of the heart and the simple cultivating of the intellect. Instruc tion, as such, ordinarily consists in filling the minds of the young with a furniture of knowledge that can help them, according to their years, to turn to a useful account their intellectual and bodily powers. " The moral training, on the contrary, should be a foundation for the development and the application of the great principles of raorality and religion as bearing on raen's conduct within the faraily and in the social sphere. " Scientific instruction will give you learned and clever young raen and women ; religious education will give you, on the contrary, honest and virtuous citizens. Instruction, separated from education properly so called, serves rather to fill young hearts with vanity than to disciphne them aright. It is quite otherwise with a right education ; such a training, under the guidance of religion, which is the regulator of the heart of man and the inspirer of pure and generous affections, knows how to implant and to cultivate LUMINOUS EXPLANATION OF TRUE EDUCATION. 237 virtue in the most illiterate souls without the aid of much scientific polishing or instruction. "... Then, again, and to speak the truth, do parents pay attention to the nature, the solidity of the instruction given to their children ? Do they see to it that it is sound, useful, well ordered, and fit to prepare and help an educa tion such as is fit for Christian children and members of a Catholic community ; that those who give such instruc tion have the necessary gifts of religious conviction, of vir tue, of learning, such as may win thera the respect and obe dience of their pupils ; that, above all, the study of re ligion, so essential to the education and the virtuous life of young people, should hold the foreraost place among all other studies, should have a proper and adequate develop ment, and be carried on under the direction of the Church, the depositary and teacher of religious doctrines? "You see, therefore, that in this respect alone there cannot be (in a neutral school) a sufficient guarantee for a right and complete education, nor any relief for parents of the great burden on their conscience." Coming to the current sayings in our day, " that both instruction and education should be in harmony zvith the age and free from prejudices," the. C3.rAm3.\ increases in vig orous remonstrance : " Have you ever understood the real significance of these words, which are too often heard from the lips of some unwary parent, as well as from those of self-esteemed educators ? No one denies that all the arts advance with time, and on all methods of huraan education a new light is cast by experience and a new increase obtained. Nor would the raodernizing processes we hear people talk of meet with any opposition when they only affect the forra, when they are really beneficial, and do not affect injuri ously either Christian principles or Christian duties. " These men, however, have in view a far different con ception and purpose. Instruction and education, void of prejudices, in the language of the day, mean simply that they should be such as to befit proraiscuously farailies of 238 LIFE OF LEO XIII. all shades of religious faith, worshipping at the altars of every creed, whether the creeds be those of Protestantism or that of the Hebrew. It is an education devoid of all the external practices and duties of the Christian faith, and calculated to familiarize young people with ' freedom of conscience ' and indifferentism. It is such as to accustom themselves to make such compromises as are incompatible with the immutability of Catholic dogma and Gospel mo rality each time that such compromises seem demanded by what people call ' social exigencies,' and civilization, and the superiority of the age, and such worldly considerations. It is, in fine, such as to make a raan live a gay life in this world, as if here were for him the end of all and his own supreme destiny. "And although this systera of education does not openly exclude every religious eleraent, such as it contains is so superficial and diluted that it is anything but fit to fill the souls of the young with a perfect knowledge, a true love, an exact practice, a hearty profession of the Catholic faith to which they belong. " There is another great evil resulting frora this, as they call it, impartial or unprejudiced education. Do you knovv' what it is ? It is to take no account of the powerful in fluence of the examples of the home-circle, and to afford the children of the household all facilities for finding them selves, frora their early years, in the raidst of the most pow erful seductions of worldly society. " No ! it is not d^ prejudice, but an undeniable truth, con tinually demonstrated by the experience of every day, that the school of example has more power to form the minds of the young than mere oral teaching. Nay, frequently what causes the failure of an education well wrought out by the zealous pastor and the skilful schoolmaster are the evil examples given at home. "It is ViO prejudice, but a most pressing duty and an earnest of true fatherly love, which guards the young against the dangers and snares with which the road of worldlings is sown — against licentious conversations, pesti- THE YOU.\G SHOULD BE GVAKDLD. 23r) lential books, obscene spectacles, evil companions, perfidi ous friendships, and dark associations. It is rather la mentably blindness and inexcusable folly on the part of parents to pretend to accustom their children for a while to the ways of the world, to make them know everything, open the way to the gratification of every passion, allow ing their dear ones to be their own masters, exposing them to every temptation, in which their innocence re ceives wounds which no time can cure." * * " Scelta." CHAPTER XVL CARDINAL PECCI BATTLING FOR HIS CLERGY. — I. CON TENDING FOR THE SACRED RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OF THE SECULAR PRIESTHOOD. IT is not to be denied that among the very worst ene mies of religion in Italy from 1846 to 1886 were some of her own ministers. Among these may have been men of unimpeachable moral conduct, who, carried away by the powerful current of ideas and sentiments running resist- lessly in favor of Italian nationality, independence, and unity, and with wilful blindness deemed the established religion an obstacle and an enemy, and combated it with all their might. If such pure patriots could be counted in the ranks of the Revolutionists we certainly know them not. Others there were, on the contrary, who, finding the obligations of their priestly vows an intolerable yoke, cast it off and sought liberty in the profession of creeds in which they did not believe. We know how bitter is the hatred of such men for the faith they have abjured, and to what extremes they will go to satisfy it. Others again — and the names of many such have acquir ed a European and even an American notoriety — had been, while still within the pale of the Catholic Church and holding a position in her ministry, found guilty of various crimes, sometimes of public notoriety, of the most scan dalous nature, and punished for the same. Punished again and again, and at last excommunicated, suspended, inter dicted, these men found a refuge in Piedmont, or in Eng land, or the United States, justifying the crimes which they did not and could not deny by accusing the Church which had cast them out. We need only recall to the reader the terrible indictment of Cardinal Newman drawil THE WORST ENEMIES OF RELIGION. 24 1 up against this class of reprobates in the person of one of their cleverest and raost notorious representatives. The old, popular, inveterate prejudices against the Church of Rome, her pretended " errors and corruptions," the perpetual war-cry of the most fanatical and least en lightened sectarians against the Pope as " the Man of Sin," against the Papacy as " the Kingdom of Satan," were too wide-spread on both sides of the Atlantic forty years ago, and are too prevalent even at this day, not to find a ready echo in the pulpit, the press, and the interested portions of the religious communit}-. We know how these men were received, petted, lionized, set up as glorious con quests of the Gospel truth over the corruptions of Popery, and listened to as eagerl}- by gaping church-audiences and packed lecture-halls as if every one of them was a Luther sent down, expressly frora heaven to help demolish utterly Papal Rome and to free Italy and the world from the in cubus of that grand system of intellectual domination — the Papacy So with the eraissaries of the secret societies, and with the bands of Garibaldi, and with the fleet of Persano and the armies of Fanti and Cialdini, these men returned to Italy, to the Pontifical States. They had — and they knew it — many like themselves, deposed, degraded, despised, who had remained behind in city and country place, looking forward to the coming of the Revolution as to the dawn of that liberty in which evil should be good, wrong should be right, error should be truth, the corrupt heart should have its full satisfaction ; in which the lawless should be the lawgivers and judges, and the disrobed priest should be free to pick up the mud in the gutters and cast it in the face of bishop, and cardinal, and Pope. At length the dawn of this liberty came in Central Italy in 1859-60. In Piedmont it had come in 1848, when the famous Siccardi Laws, inspired by these unpriestly and un hallowed refugees, did away, as a first step toward the eman cipation coveted, with the ecclesiastical courts which had tried the prevaricating rainisters of the altar, found them 242 LIFE OF LEO XIIL guilty, punished them, and branded thera with a stigma of indelible infamy. As they did in Piedmont in 1849, so did they in Umbria in i860. And they were evidently in a great hurry to do it. They began by abolishing the ecclesiastical courts ; by taking away from the Church the right to judge her own ministers, and for notorious prevarications coraraitted in the fulfilment of their sacred functions, for the public trans gression of laws which were the very bulwark of priestly virtue, the guarantee to the faithful priest of the reverence and unbounded confidence of the people to whom he min istered. There were so many of these " returned patriot priests," as they called themselves, who wanted to see the Church stripped of every vestige of freedom, of authority, and bound hand and foot by the new political power! And then there were so many others — at least it was hoped so — in Umbria and elsewhere who were to be won over to the new order of things by being made independent of episcopal reprimand or control, by being rewarded for the favor they had shown to the now dominant ideas I Then simultaneously with the arbitrary decree abolishing ecclesiastical courts came one taking away from churches and all ecclesiastical edifices their sacred character and all the immunities enjoyed from the birth of Christianity al most. Then again was fulminated, with the same hot haste, another edict taking away from the ecclesiastical authorities all control and jurisdiction over establishments of education of every grade. These edicts were published respectively on the 25th and 28th of September, i860, con sequently within less than two weeks after the first Pied montese soldier had passed the frontiers of Umbria. Cardinal Pecci, who had reason to remember the san guinary scenes which followed the needless storming and bombardment of Perugia, as well as the brutal discourtesy shown to hiraself by the Piedmontese generals, was not to be deterred by any personal considerations from doing at once what he thought to be his duty. He remembered the EDUCATION, CHARITY, BENEFICENCE SECULARIZED. 243 long imprisonment and exile with which were visited on the bishops of Piedmont acts such as that he was now about to perforra. Yet he did not hesitate an instant. On September 30 he wrote to the Royal Commissary, who, authorized or unauthorized, had taken on himself thus to overturn by a stroke of the pen the foundations of the religious order which had subsisted for so many ages. " If }-our first decree," he sa}-s, " deprives the Church of the power to judge her own ministers, the second forbids her in a great measure to fulfil her mission of preaching truth and instructing the peoples. This is a raission which she has received, not from man, but from God — a raission which, extending to all the nations of earth, should much the more fully have its free exercise in a Catholic com munity through the instruction of youth. " The decree admits that religion is inseparable from a wise instruction and education. But then it excludes in the most absolute raanner the direction and superintendence of the religious authority from the institutions in which youth is instructed and educated, and substitutes for it privately those of the government. '' It is easy to raeasure the scope and consequences of this measure. By it you violate the constitutional right of the Church ; you alter the soleran agreeraents which accompanied the erection of these institutions ; you violate and set aside the last will and testament of the generous benefactors who founded them and endowed thera on such formal conditions ; you ignore the origin of these founda tions and the property of the Church in those which, under her direct auspices and with her own substance and means, she called into existence. " See yourself, sir, if I have not good reason to protest against all this, and, in my position of a bishop and a guar dian of the sacred interests of the Church, I can help ex pressing my formal reprobation and the profound pain these measures have caused rae." No steps were then taken to arrest or imprison the courageous prelate. He felt, no doubt, that his reraon- 244 ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ •^^¦^¦^• strances would be vain ; nevertheless he thought it his duty both to write and to act. He was not one to make a public parade of his opinions and sentiments on any oc casion. He always acted for a purpose, and waited until Providence, to whose good pleasure he solely looked, fur nished him the fitting opportunity. Even then he im plored the divine help as fervently as if all depended on the lights vouchsafed to hira from on high. He was busy consulting his brother-prelates and con sulted by them, counselling with his priests on the diffi culties which were fast gathering around them, when, in the autumn, another fatal blow was dealt the clergy and Catholic people of Umbria by the suppression and disper sion of the Monastic Orders of men and women and the confiscation of their property, even of the dower which the raerabers had brought with thera into their respective com- raunities". In Perugia, from its first occupation, the Pied raontese troops had taken possession of the convents and raonasteries. One raagnificent establishraent in particular, the raost ancient and the raost beautiful of all, the Benedic tine raonastery and church of San Pietro Cassinese, was hor ribly ill used by these barbarians, who, under the cross of Savoy and in the array of a Catholic king, behaved like the Huns of Attila or Genseric's Vandals, and defaced the ex quisite frescoes of the cloisters and refectory. Even Pro testants who since then visited the place have expressed their reprobation of this gratuitous, purposeless, and wan ton destruction. But what was all that as corapared with the wrong done to the coraraunities themselves, who had raade the house of God so glorious, and the walks and coramunity-rooms in their raonastic horaes an image of the everlasting home ? These establishments were blessed by the people, for they belonged to the people, who found there at all times spiritual counsel and aid, and in seasons of distress and af fliction help, and medicine, and food, and loving words, and kind looks — doors and hearts never closed to the voice of the needy. THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS SUPPRESSED. 245 But it was the secular clergy who were to be, in one way, the greatest sufferers. The regular priests, members of these Monastic Orders, were their ever-ready, efficient, and most generous helpmates in the rainistry in every work that regarded the sanctification and salvation of souls. They had made the holy places of Umbria, and in these holy places had been born, and had grown, ripened, and borne such delicious fruit, all that is fairest and best in Italian art, literature, and science, without mentioning that sanc tity of life which left its fragrance everywhere. Cardinal Pecci, with a heavy heart, but with his soul all aflame with righteous indignation, again wrote to the Royal Commissary, who, backed by the anti-Catholic spirit which ruled in the Piedraontese Cabinet and Parliament, set at naught, in promulgating and executing his decree, the re strictions and limitations imposed by the king. They were merciful dispositions tempering the rigor of the law of sup pression. But the men of the Revolution knew not what mercy or moderation was. " The decree published by your Royal Coraraissariat," he writes, "... suppressing the raonastic families together with many other institutions, and sequestrating their pro^ perty, fills up to overflowing the cup of bitterness held to the lips of all the bishops of Urabria. This decree, start ing from considerations as false as they are insulting to the clergy, evidently aims at wounding religion and social jus tice itself. " It is a Catholic maxira that it appertains solely to the suprerae authority of the Church to found and approve Re ligious Orders ; nor, independently of that same authority, may any temporal power order even their partial dissolu tion or suppression. How can you juridically justify the spoliation and confiscation of properties already sacred both by their nature and destination, the right to possess which and the inviolability of which are guaranteed by all natural reason and positive social law ? "Then this spoliation is accomplished in the narae of a Catholic government — of a government which, a few days 246 LIFE OF LEO XIII. before * this decree, had been obliged to acknowledge and confess in an official act that the ecclesiastical nature of pro perty does not in any way weaken the right of possession. " You put in force for these provinces of Umbria, by an exceptional raeasure, the raodern Sardinian legislation which called forth the censure and opposition of Catholic sentiraent, and met with the loudest remonstrances through out the Piedmontese kingdora — a legislation afterward for mally condemned by the Suprerae Head of our religion in his consistorial allocution of July 26, 1855. And, raoreover, these laws corae to be applied here with a harshness and a sweeping extension all the greater that the religious corpo rations suppressed are raore nuraerous, and that the poor religious are nowhere allowed to reraain in their cloisters. " Wherefore, seeing all this, Mr. Commissary, I cannot refrain from complaining, and frora condemning with pa.s- toral liberty the decree itself in all its parts." f The cruelty — not harshness merely, but wanton cruelty — with which these laws of suppression were enforced have elicited frora non-Catholic writers severe and just animad version. Not all Protestant writers nor all Protestant edu cated raen are willing to conderan as useless or as injurious to society these wonderful organizations of self-sacrificing and devoted raen who were, in the raiddle ages, the great est benefactors of European society. The cruelty with which they were driven out in Italy from the desolate and barren mountain solitudes which they had made their abode was all the more purposeless that the government had no use for the dwellings which they left behind. These remote raonastic houses araid the barren summits of the Apennines were the real providence of the country folk far and near. This was peculiarly the case with one monastery in Umbria, the Caraaldolese of Monte Corona. The Cardinal Archbishop of Perugia, in his indignation, again appealed to the king against the extreme rigor of *Note of Count Cavour to the Swiss government on November 20. i860. \ " Scelta," p. 464. Front View of St. Peter's and the Vatican. 248 LIFE OP LEO XIII. his comraissary in Umbria, who seemed to have but little regard for the royal wishes. " The case," he says, " which now happens under my eyes touches the Hermit-Congregation of Caraaldolese monks situated at Monte Corona. These virtuous re cluses, to whom an illustrious ancestor of your Majesty, Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, at the solicitation of the venerable Father Alexander di Ceva, gave an honorable abode in his states about the close of 1601, are now made the object of ignoble and rancorous calumnies. . . . Dis persed within the space of eight days, they were compelled to tear theraselves away from the famous sanctuary which they had themselves founded. " Men of stainless life, of unbounded popularity among our country-folk, whom solitude, silence, and prayer per petually separated frora all worldly pursuits, they were ac cused of mixing theraselves up with politics ! Men whom the world never saw coraing down frora the lonely peak of their inaccessible raountain, except when the offices of brotherly charity corapelled them (and whose convent was the refuge of the pilgrira, the infirra, and the needy) — these were held up as persons who imperilled the interests of the nation ! . . . " If, at least, they had been allowed the tirae and facili ty to justify themselves ! But testimonies in their favor, and intercessions, though never so nuraerous, availed not to clear them. Nor were the members of the municipal coun cils allowed to give any expression to their opinion in their favor. They are already undergoing the hard lot to which inexorable fate condemns them in spite of the temperate restrictions of your royal decree. So that, in the era of Italian suppressions, they are condemned to endure the extremity of misfortune frora which, under the foreign domination of the French, by an honorable exception, was saved the sacred Hermit-Monastery of Monte Corona, as our history testifies. . . . " Thus, O Sire, every temperate precaution taken by your Majesty was frustrated, the very will of the sovereign CARDINAL PECCTS PROTESTS UNAVAILING. 249 was defeated by the disloyalty with which the law was exe cuted. And thus the fate of so many most worthy reli gious persons comes to be decided by the harsh and op pressive measures of your commissioners. For besides the fact that this oppression has not been so exercised in the other provinces, these measures are too manifestly in op position to the rights of religion and the social order. "... In denouncing these incidents to your Majesty I cannot help allowing to overflow, in words of lamenta tion, the bitter grief which tortures the soul of a bishop at the sight of the repeated shameful outrages coraraitted against the venerable rights of the Church, and at the pitiful condition to which the interests of religion are daily brought in our midst." * All these eloquent and statesmanlike documents were only the echo outside the Italian Parliament in Turin of the admirable and exhaustive speeches delivered there by the illustrious Cesare Cantii — speeches which would have been listened to with respect and admiration of the speaker at Westminster and Washington, but which produced no effect on a revolutionary assembly bent on blotting out from Italy all trace of past legislation and institutions. Just as little effect had Cardinal Pecci's letters or me moirs on the raind of the king. Nevertheless neither he nor his brethren in the episcopate ceased to protest and remonstrate. No less than nine of these eloquent remon strances, made in his own narae, were addressed to the Piedmontese authorities, and in nine others his narae is found with those of his brother-bishops. He lifted his voice in this solemn raanner, however, only when forced to it by an imperious sense of duty. In sub mitting to the new domination he did not accept it or con ceal his opinion of its unlawfulness. Ceasing to struggle agaimst resistless might, he labored without ceasing to save the souls of his people, counselling the moderation which he practised hiraself, inducing all who obeyed hira to practise * Perugia, June 24, 1861, " Scelta dei Atti Episcopall," pp. 466-69. 250 LIFE OF LEO XIII. more fervently than ever before the duties of prayer with all the Christian virtues, avoiding in word and deed all that could give offence to others or afford a pretext to the ill- disposed to annoy or to persecute. While openly and immovably opposed to a government which discarded the legislation, institutions, and traditions of the Christian past. Cardinal Pecci never forgot, in dealing with those in power, the courtesies of life and that gentle dignity of manner which adds so much to superior station. He was careful not to offend where his conscience would not permit him to conciliate. And he never sought to communicate with the new authorities save when he wi.sh- ed to serve the private or public interests of his flock. In truth, it would have been worse than useless to at tempt to conciliate the spirit which ruled the government, the administration, the legislature, or the revolutionary press during all these fateful years. Conciliation, so far as they were concerned, meant raore than to compromise on the raost sacred principles ; it raeant virtual, if not for mal, renouncement of one's most cherished and conscien tious convictions. It was soraething like apostasy. As to the lower classes of the raen who swelled the revolutionary party and sought a reward in sorae form or other for the deeds done to serve the cause, it was impos sible to conciliate thera. Their anti-clericalism and in tolerance of everything religious and priestly was and is the blind, blasphemous, unquenchable rage of Garibaldi, their ideal hero. Every city in the annexed Papal States swarmed with these Sbirri of the " sects " or secret socie ties as soon as they fell under the Piedmontese rule. These unsatisfied and insatiable servants of the Revolu tion were evermore on the watch for opportunities and pretexts to display their patriotic zeal and anti-clerical passions. They found a very plausible pretext in the se verity shown by Cardinal Pecci in censuring three of his priests who had openly set theraselves in opposition with the authoritative teaching of Pius IX. He was denounced to the civil magistrates as having committed a punishable EFFORTS TO RELIEVE POOR RELIGIOUS. 25 I offence by "exciting raen to contemn the laws of the king dom." The court decided that the accusation was ground less ; but the case was appealed, and the higher court in its turn declared the Cardinal innocent. II. Among the cruel anxieties of his position none was more painful than to see, in the suppression of Monastic Orders, the sequestration of their property, and the break ing up of so man}- homes of peaceful piet}-, poverty, prayer, and labor, the number of helpless men and women — many of them infirm and aged — cast upon the world without a roof above thera or any adequate means of support. All of these, in choosing to enter religious life in their youth, had devoted their entire existence to the coraraunity of which they became merabers. Very many, if not most, of the communities of raen were made up of persons who had brought a goodly share of their worldly substance to their new home. What they brought was their own ; they had a perfect right to dispose of it, just as they had an unques tioned right to select their own way of living. This was the case especially with the contemplative orders. 'As to the communities of women, all brought their dower. Their parents gave to them, on selecting a life of celibacy and retirement, what they would have given them in worldly bridals. These transactions were sanctioned alike by the laws of the Church and the civil laws. It was natural jus tice as well as religion which presided over the establish ment of the raonastic horae, over the contract forraed with it by parents and children. Such horaes and their property could no more belong to the state nor be subject to se questration than the home and property and revenues of the prince, the peasant, or the mechanic. And then to come all of a sudden, and by the brutal right of superior force to turn these men and women, living in accordance with the most ancient and revered laws of the land, out on the street, penniless, horaeless, and incapacitated from foi- 252 LIFE OP LEO XIII. lowing any lucrative calling— it was a monstrous injustice, calling down reprobation on a governraent which ought to be Christian, but which was, in this as in all else, doing the work of Antichrist. What could Cardinal Pecci do to alleviate such misery? The new masters of Italy seized his income as well as that of his clergy. He and they would get just as much or as little as it pleased the minister of Victor Emmanuel to give — that is, nothing at all to those esteemed unfriendly to the new order of things, and a pittance, sadly diminished and very irregularly paid, to all the others. But the good Cardinal could find resources even in his poverty, for he spent but little, very little indeed, on hiraself, frugal and austere as he had ever been. And now he would fain re fuse hiraself even the necessaries of life to have something to give to that crowd of wanderers whose hearts had so long been set on that other and better world. On March 5, 1863, King Victor Eraraanuel published a royal edict requiring that all appointraents to positions in the clergy and all acts relating to the same should be sub mitted to the civil authority, and should have no effect or practical validity till confirraed in the king's name by what is known as the royal placet or exequatur. In this decree the Holy See, to which it appertains to nominate and pro vide for all ecclesiastical dignities and benefices, is spoken of as " a foreign power." The right here claimed and arrogated by the usurping Piedmontese governraent is unblushingly described as "one of the suprerae rights of the civil power," whereas in all past European jurisprudence the right of royal placet or exequatur was only granted by the Holy See to certain sovereigns, for a certain tirae and within certain limits, as a reward for certain extraordinary services rendered to Christendora. In other kingdoras this right was used by the governraents in spite of the Church, which never ceased to protest against it as a usurpation. In the for mer dukedom of Savoy and kingdora of Sardinia the concordats with the Holy See raost explicitly affirmed the A NOBLE ASSERTION OF CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 253 nature of such right as being a concession and favor of the ecclesiastical or spiritual power. Hence the unblushing boldness of the minister who spoke in the king's name. But, in truth, Right had very httle to do with all the proceedings of Victor Emmanuel and the Revolution in Central Italy. Might alone prevailed. It was needless hypocrisy to seek to color usurpation and oppression by the fair name of justice or right. It was worse than hypocrisy, a pitiful falsehood, to speak of the supreme power in the Church as being " a foreign power " in Italy, and, above all, in the very provinces which had, since the eighth and ninth centuries, acknowledged the Pope, even in the tiraes of the Free Republics, as the suzerain power. Again the bishops of Urabria had recourse to Cardinal Pecci as their counsellor and raouth-piece, and another magnificent remonstrance was drawn up by him and sent, with his own and his colleagues' signatures, to Victor Em manuel on June 8, 1863. * There does not exist a nobler monument of episcopal independence and noble Christian liberty in asserting the rights of God and of His Church as against the pretensions and usurpations of the secular power. Such a pretension " can in nowise be made by a govern ment which is and would continue to be Catholic. May hap the divine comraission given to Peter and his succes sors to feed the whole Christian flock, to loose and to bind upon earth, had annexed to it the condition that they should begin by obtaining the placet, or consent of the powers of this world ? And the divine mission imposed on the Apostles to preach to all nations and to instruct them in the divine coraraandments was perchance subor dinated to the good pleasure and the restrictions of the civil magistrates? " Far from it. Peter and the Apostles, and so raany other illustrious pastors following their example, strug- *" Scelta di Atti Episcopall," pp. 357 and following. 254 LIFE OF LEO XIII. gled and endured martyrdom for no other reason than that they proclaimed the New Law of Christ, no matter how rigorously forbidden by the world, in spite of the prohibi tions and persecutions of raere huraan politicians. The independence of the power divinely entrusted to the Visi ble Head of religion and to the other lawful pastors for the spiritual governraent of the Christian society has its origin frora God ; whosoever attacks or ignores it denies the work of God in founding and organizing His Church. To oppose irapediments or put restraints such as those in question on the exercise of this power is just to place a huraan institution above the divine, and to make an earthly power the judge and reformer of a divine commis sion. . . . "... Modern theorists will not or know not how to distinguish the two well-defined paths along which, by di vine ordinance, both the civil and the ecclesiastical powers have to travel toward the end assigned to each respective ly. The raodern theory will have the rauch-desired har- raony between Church and state considered as a right of inspection (on the part of the latter), whereas this har mony is only greatly recommended for the sake of the re ciprocal advantage of the respective subjects of both so cieties. It thus transforms into a legal patronage and mas tery the obligation which each power is under toward the other of assisting and protecting it, in order that each so ciety may fully enjoy its due proportion of utility. Hence it is that, instead of affirming the originary independence and superiority of the spiritual power, people endeavored to raake of the Church a ward and servant of temporal raonarchies." The reraonstrance then deals with the history of the practice called exequatur. The first trace recorded of it occurs in the pontificate of Urban VI. (1378-1389) during the great Western schism. The concession, aiming at veri fying the authenticity of the papal rescripts and other such documents in a tirae of calaraitous doubt and division, was only given to certain Church prelates and judges in Interior of St. Peter's Church. 256 LIFE OF LEO XIII. such churches as were raost in danger of schisra. And the concession was only a teraporary one. When there were no raore anti-popes or danger of intrusion into pastoral offices this exequatur ceased. In so far as the house of Savoy is concerned, the con cession of exequatur, or all favors granted by the Popes in the raatter of benefices or patronal rights, is not one of doubt or obscurity. Such favors were granted for a time ; were then claimed as a right, made the subject of grave abuse, gave rise to long and complex negotiations, which were all settled by that great canonist, Benedict XIV., on January 6, 1742. But even he distinctly asserted, what the Piedraontese governraent of the day recognized, "the in dependence and inviolability of all papal instructions is sued for the spiritual governraent of that Catholic coun- try. The reraonstrance thereupon contrasts with these facts of past history what has just happened in Central Italy. " The dispositions announced in the ministerial circular of March 22 [1863] depart altogether frora these rules, and, setting aside the economy of the conventions con cluded in former tiraes [between the Sardinian and Pon tifical governraents], they arrogate to theraselves an abso lute and lordly power of registration on all the acts with out distinction of the ecclesiastical power." This, of course, is what the Holy See never could in any supposition tolerate. The rainisterial circular proraulgating the new law affirmed that the government only did what always had been done hitherto. This was a palpable falsehood. " For these dioceses of Umbria," the remonstrance says, on the contrary, " a comparison with the past is too elo quent not to convince any one that the passage from a condition of perfect religious liberty to that of registration and bondage to the state is not only a novelty, but a nov elty all too real and baneful. " Is it not a novelty, a novelty in principle, to consider the authority which the Suprerae Head of the Church ex- A TERRIBLE ARRAIG.VMENT. 257 ercises in the midst of the Catholic fold as a foreign au thority f " Is it not a novelty that lay officials should intrude themselves as spies and judges of the spiritual relations between the faithful and their pastors, and of what it is either expedient to do or to permit for the protection and increase of religion ? " Is it not a novelty to give to a single functionary of the treasury the authority to inquire into all ecclesi astical pensions, to receive all opposing documents, to judge appeals, to incite people to refuse, and to confiscate the documents or petitions relating to the refusal? " Is it not a novelty, in giving the exequatur to reve nues for sacred functions, to seek at the sarae tirae to ful fil financial transactions, iraposing on ecclesiastical bodies which have no legal existence the obligation to convert their property into bonds on the state?"'* And so the terrible arraignment went on, enumerating such acts of inconceivable oppression and meanness as would, if made known, have ruined any government in a country where people read the newspapers. But in Italy the masses are not a newspaper-reading people, and the government presumed on the fact to tyrannize with im punity. " It was the old art of heterodox innovators," the Car dinal elsewhere says to the king, " to raake people believe that the spiritual power raight be always laying traps for the civil power. Their object was thereby to put an end to any beneficial rautual influence or understanding be tween the Church and the state, and thus to introduce the baneful theory that there should exist between them sy.s- tematic distrust and aversion. ..." There is a disheartening picture of the working of this mean and tyrannical interference with the government of the Church in the minutest details, and the spy-system introduced into this state superintendence of all Church *Our readers will doubtless remember that thus was confiscated the property of the Propaganda. 25^ LIPE OF LEO XlII. accounts and rainisterial functions. These are things never till now heard of in the English-speaking world, and will account for the reiterated and indignant remonstrances of Pius IX., and the no less indignant but equally ineffica cious protests of his successor. " In the official scales it is not always the conscientious judgment of the bishop, nor the results of the canonical concursus, nor the precedent merits and services, nor the exemplary priestly life which have the greatest weight in obtaining for a candidate the civil possession of the pre bend conferred on him ; but certain complacencies for the world, the sympathy of political parties, the merits, in fact, of modern patriotism, are the only things which too often are taken into account. " It is painful to think of it, deplorable to have to say it ! The collation of ecclesiastical livings, trammelled by the governmental placet, appeared to people to have been changed into a monopoly of political interests, and into a focus of hateful undertakings against the Supreme Pontificate and the Church. To prevent the installation in the charges obtained by thera of hard-working and blame less priests who had received canonical investiture and the approbation of their bishops, men were found to pry into the secret thoughts of the candidates, to have recourse to a systematic distrust of them, to the theories current about suspected persons ; they opened up the door to secret de nunciations, to low party intrigues. At the same time all kinds of favors are showered on disobedient and worldly- minded priests ; * such obtain charges, honors, pensions, assigned to thera most frequently at the expense of the revenues of the Church, as a reward for having turned their backs upon her. There has been no lack of official enco miums and encouragements given to certain clerical fac- * By a decree of the Royal Commissary of Umbria, November 30, i860, "... a monthly pension of sixty Italian lire [twelve dollars] is granted to all priests of these provinces who, for their deeds in favor of liberty or patriotism, have been suspended a divinis." (Note added to the text ) FAVORS BESTOWED O.V tVRONGDOER.S. 259 tions who, led away by ambition, by self-interest or false liberty, endeavored to upset in the sanptuai}- itself all order and discipline, and to raise there the flag of emancipation and schism. Abundant subsidies were bestowed on sus pended priests. . . . Generous presents were set apart for the benefit of unruly priests, at the expense of the Clerical Fund and against the spirit of its founders, while so many cenobites and nuns, stripped of their own lawful patri mony, had not wherewith to buy their daily bread." One's amazement and indignation go on increasing as the courageous Cardinal enumerates the terrible grievances to which the Church and the clergy are subjected " in the name of liberty and patriotism." " The fact is," he continues, " that here the assent pf the civil authority is necessary for the execution of every episcopal act, every ecclesiastical arrangement, which does not rigorously regard the interior conscience. " Here you find proscribed all interference of the bishop with instruction and education, even such as are moral and religious, whether in schools or in boarding- houses, in hospitals and asylums ; and that in spite of the formal requirements of the testaments of founders and of the conditions imposed by the foundation. " Our hearts will not permit us to continue this pain ful enumeration," the prelates say in concluding. " When the Church is thus ill-treated in a Catholic country it is easy to conjecture what ruinous results follow for the reli gious interests of a people. We hope that our words may not be altogether without fruit, if your Majesty will only weigh the importance of the subject with which their re monstrance deals in the same balance in which you weigh your duties as a Catholic sovereign." CHAPTER XVII. • A PAUSE IN THE CONFLICT : A FAMILY FEAST. — I. CELE BRATING THE ARCHBISHOP'S ELEVATION TO THE CAR DINALATE. IN describing the indefatigable labors of the Arch bishop-Bishop of Perugia, although we gave him again and again the title of Cardinal, we could not pause to give to the reader the details of his elevation to the dignity of the Roraan purple. In sorae published biogra phies of Leo XIII. it is positively affirraed that Gregory XVI. before his death had created Monsignor Pecci Car dinal, and that some sinister influence prevented Pius IX. from giving effect to the act of his predecessor. We think the authentic statement we here make will set all doubts on this point at rest. " The honor of the sacred purple had already been de creed to him in the intention {nella mente) of Gregory XVI. from the moment that the latter recalled him from Bel gium ; and the proof is that the Pope before his death said to a revered meraber of the Sacred College who en joyed his confidence — Cardinal Bianchi — that he was so rauch pleased by Monsignor Pecci's prorapt acquiescence in accepting the bishopric of Perugia that he was think ing of promoting him in the next consistory. " This cardinal, on seeing Monsignor Pecci afterwards in 1847, embraced hira affectionately, and, making him sit down by his side, ' The Church has experienced a great loss,' he said, ' in the death of Gregory XVI. I ara sorry for it for your sake also, Monsignor ; for I can now assure you that were it not for that death you would be already a cardinal.' " The long and difficult series of political changes which unfolded itself after the death of Pope Gregory was the JO A CHIM PECCI ELE I 'A TED TO 7 HE CARD IX. I I.tTE. 2 6 I reason why his gracious purpose \\'as not carried into effect and had to be dela}-ed for se\cral }'cars. Pius IX., wlio was aware of the promises made on this [loint in the reign of his predecessor, and mindful of the services rendered by Monsignor Pecci to the Holy See in the charges which he had held, resolved to preconize him in the consistory of December 19, 1853, assigning to him the presbyteral title of St. Chi-ysogonus. During the festive ceremonies of the promotion, and in receiving the cardinal's hat, he had for companion the illustrious Cardinal Brunelli, just returned from the nunciature of Spain. The entire diplomatic corps, the Roman nobility, and raany strangers of distinc tion visited, on this occasion, the new cardinals. Among the visitors was the present Prince Imperial of Germany, Frederick William, who offered them his most courteous congratulations. From Perugia also carae select deputa tions of all orders of citizens to escort their Cardinal Arch bishop on his return, and to lay at the feet of the Pope their respectful thanks for the honor done their city and diocese." * In Perugia, raeanwhile, they were making great prepara tions to celebrate, on his return, his elevation to the cardi nalate. It was a family feast, at which holiest love pre sided — the grateful love of a whole people for a pastor and a parent, for a man of God who has been in their midst the visible image of the divine goodness and bene ficence. In the beginning of 1854 Cardinal Pecci's great faraily could be said to be a united one. During the dark years of 1848, 1849, ^"d 1850 the Archbishop of Perugia had made superhuman efforts to prevent the outbreak of the evil revolutionary passions which had been fanned into so fierce a flame. Where he could not quench these unholy fires he exerted hiraself to save his people from their fury and to cure the mischief they had done. When the whirl wind and the flame had passed away for a time he be- * MS. 262 LIFE OF LEO XIII. sought the Pontifical government to restore to their fami lies such of the insurgents as had been raore sinned against than sinning, who had been led away by the artifices of the revolutionary propaganda. So that the Cardinal had, even among those most bit terly opposed to the Pontifical authority and to the Church itself, not a few who regarded hira with respect and who gratefully reraerabered his kindness. Let us, therefore, rest mind and heart awhile by as sisting at the faraily feast held by the ancient Etruscan city on her hill-top in honor of her benefactor. It is like being present at a real banquet of the soul, in a lull be tween two awful convulsions of all the elements of earth and air. Sunday, February 26, was chosen for these solemnities. From early morning along all the winding roads which led up to Perugia from the surrounding valleys the Umbrian populations could be seen streaming upward in their pic turesque costuraes. A hard-working, industrious, intelli gent, and virtuous people, they had responded heartily to the culture bestowed on thera for the last seven years by one whose every thought and care were for their dearest interests. If the revolutionary and anti-Christian propa ganda had done thera no little harm, the good pastor's watchful and fatherly zeal had done thera no little good. They loved hira, and they were proud of hira ; and well might they. The city is adorned everywhere — a quaint and wonder ful old city throughout, with her walls, like those of Siena, scrambling up and down and around a group of enormous crags or hills, on which houses have got built, no one knows how, and the crooked, narrow streets find their way in spite of all the laws of gravitation and symmetry. It is — or rather raust have been in the days of Perugino and Raphael — a raost picturesque and beautiful city. Chris tian architecture, sculpture, and painting had made of that old Christian republic nestling on these lofty crags a thing of resplendent beauty ; and the glory and the joy thereof PERUGIA CELEBRA TES HER BISHOP S ELE I 'A TION. 263 have not yet departed altogether, despite the anti-Chris tian hate of the present masters of Italy and the desola tion and destruction of her holy places. The old, lovely raediseval Free City was the creation of the labor-guilds, who, protected by the Popes and protect ing these in their turn, made the prehistoric Etruscan stronghold a beehive and a temple to religion, to the arts, and to science, and raade of the surrounding territory, wild and mountainous as it is, a very garden. They are a proud race, these Perugians, and have they not a right to be so ? And how they love their native soil ! It is so full, for thera, of raost sacred and raost thrilling memories ! So on that Sabbath raorning of February 26, 1854, they have streamed into the city through Perugia's ancient gates — men, women, children, the old and the young, all who could corae to share in the coraraon joyous cele bration. They stop on their way to hear Mass in sorae one of the numerous churches. Perugia was still under Papal rule; the monastic coraraunities had not been suppressed and expelled ; and there was in every church and at every altar a succession of priests, who afforded the people an opportunity to gratify their devotion and fulfil the religious obligation of the day-. The streets are gaily decorated. The Cathedral Square in particular, with its antique and picturesque palaces, is hung with tapestries and strearaers. The disfigured front of the Duorao is concealed by the scarlet and gold drapery ; and over the great central door is an inscription — a truth-telling inscription in honor of the man and the day.* * One remarkable feature of the external decorations of the cathe dral was the following inscription, placed above the principal entrance amid rich hangings of scarlet and gold. We give it, deeming that more th.an one of our readers may take a lesson from classic Italy in getting up eiiher civic or religious celebrations : "Sancta Perusinorum Ecclesia— Joachimo Pecci— Antistite suo peril- lustri ac spectatissirao— munere SS""' Patris Pii Papae IX. — in amplissi- mum Cardinalium S. R. Ecclesiae Senatura — lajtatur adscito— eumque nova hac splendentem gloria — vix dum gratulantium civium vota — bene auspi cate fortunat reditu — dulci prosequitur amplexii — Dcumque Optimum 264 IIP^ OF LEO XIII. The clergy had labored to raake of the rehgious part of the festivities one worthy of their chief, of their city, and of themselves. In truth, the spectacle in the interior of the cathedral was one never to be forgotten. The decora tions were all that Italian taste and skill could make them. The multitude of worshippers now fill every available space. All the authorities are present in full official costume, and the clergy crowd the sanctuary. The Cardinal himself ful fils to-day the functions of high-priest, and offers the Mys tic Sacrifice which is the centre of Catholic worship. After the Gospel, as is his wont when he pontificates, he delivers a horaily to the iraraense audience. His voice, strong and resonant even at the present time, has its full and vibrating tones, every syllable penetrating to the re motest corners of the sacred edifice.* The circurastances of the tiraes and country needed prayer, and at the end of the Pontifical Mass the Blessed Sacraraent was exposed, reraaining so all day, this being the raost solemn form of supplication in the Catholic Church ; and all through afternoon and evening priests and people succeeded each other before the mercy-seat. In the afternoon there was a session of the great Um brian Acaderay of the Filedoni in honor of the Cardinal, and which he honored with his presence. Sixteen of the most accomplished and renowned writers in Umbria read exquisite compositions, all of which were afterwards col- Maximum — solemni ritu pro diuturna purpurati pontificis incolumitate — Precatur — effusa omnium frequentia et lECtitia— IV. Kalendas Martii MDCCCLIV." — "The Church of Perugia rejoices that her illustrious and most revered Bishop, Joachim Pecci, has been raised, by the favor of our Holy Father, Pius IX , to the dignity of Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church ; and, while her citizens have just felicitated him on his happy return, she receives him with a loving embrace, and prays with solemn pomp for the long life of her Cardinal Bishop, together with the overflow ing and joyous multitudes of people." *The local journal which describes this family feast says that his dis course touched principally on the earthquake shocks which had occurred during the Cardinal's absence in Rome, and which had done great damage and caused widespread alarm. He exhorted his people to appease the divine anger, and bade them put their trust in the Infinite Mercy. POPULAR REJOICINGS. 265 lected and printed. In the evening there were at the ca thedral Pontifical Vespers, followctl by the Te Deum. The music, both in the morning and in the evening services, was in keeping with the artistic renown of Perugia. Most touching it was at the solemn procession to and from the cathedral, forenoon and afternoon, to witness the sincere veneration of the dense multitudes for their pastor. There was no mistaking this outpouring of the popular heart. J\Iore than anything else the eagerness of the children to approach the Cardinal and get his blessing or kiss his hand bespoke the love entertained towards him in the homes of the people. On the route of the procession, also, the city band of music discoursed its sweetest and its most triumphal strains. But sweetest music of all was the voice of the citizens of every class which was heard on all sides, and in no suppressed tones, praising and blessing the man whose whole life and strength were devoted to the good of his flock. The raunicipal authorities, besides gene rously paying the expenses of this feast, caused abundant alms to be distributed among the poor who had corae to the celebration ; and, what was more significant, they gave a marriage-dower to five poor and respectable young wo men to be selected by the Cardinal in the five wards of the city. In the evening Perugia was magnificently and spon taneously iUurainated. During the evening also " the Car dinal had the satisfaction to see in his residence all the authorities, all the raost distinguished persons of every rank and condition, enjoying the delightful entertainraent to which he had invited thera. . . . Any one who is ac quainted with the character of our people, and who could have been in Perugia both at the time of the elevation of our Bishop to the dignity of Cardinal and at the celebra tion of last Sunday, must have seen how flattered the Pe rugians were by the favor conferred on the city in the per son of our prelate." * * Osservatorc delf Umbria, March i, 1854. 266 LIFE OF LEO XIII. II. PERUGIA CELEBRATES HER ARCHBISHOP'S SILVER JUBILEE, 1871. It was in the midst of the gloom which settled on all true Catholic hearts in Italy, after the Piedraontese occu pation of Rome, that the time carae round to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Cardinal Pecci's appoint ment to the see of Perugia. His soul, oppressed as it was by the calamities of the Holy Father, by the manifold spo-, liations which the Church had almost daily to undergo in every diocese of Italy, and by the means openly taken to choke up and destroy all the springs of Christian life in the land, was but httle inclined to joyous celebrations. The church of Perugia, which he had taken to his heart twenty- five years before, and which he had loved with a love so true and so devoted, was also subjected to the same Baby lonian bondage. He had labored so hard, after the ex ample of the Master, to raake her a glorious church, crowned with the beauty of holiness, and rejoicing in chil dren worthy to be truly called the children of God; and lo! his labors seeraed doomed to come to naught. The enemy had come into the field where, with the good grain cast so abundantly into the furrows, the sweat and the tears of the father of the faraily had fallen, and he had ploughed up the growing corn and sown tares and the seeds of all lawless ness. It was a season for weeping, fasting, prayer, and hu railiation before the Most High. How could he consent to rejoice or to listen to the glad voices of his people ? The people would not allow his year of jubilee to pass, nevertheless. They had determined to make him feel that, even though the enemy had come in amongst them in the night and done what havoc he could, the generations whose rainds and hearts he, the man of God, had cultivated so lovingly, would bear him plentiful fruits of gladness in the season of need. Clergy and citizens, therefore, assembled in spite of his reluctance, and resolved to celebrate the occasion with as much solemnity and even more profuse demonstrations ARCHBISHOP PECCI S SILVER JUBILEE. 267 of love and gratitude than on the occasion — long ago, across the dark gulf of evil days — of his elevation to the cardinalate. The Cathedral of San Lorenzo again put on her most splendid vesture. Pens whom the Cardinal had trained to emulate his own exquisite culture of the Latin tongue composed commeraorative inscriptions, for the por tal and other parts of the beautiful edifice, which Cicero and Sallust would have adraired.* Prelates and digni taries from the neighboring dioceses, and from Rome it self, came to Perugia to testify their love and admiration for one who, next to Pius IX. himself, had been the cham pion of the oppressed Italian churches, the spokesman of the episcopacy, their model and guide in withstanding evil and upholding the sacred rights of the pastors and their flocks, without ever allowing the watchful invader to dis cover a word or an act which Christ Himself would not have avowed. The Holy Father sent his congratulations. Day by day some new merit revealed itself in the life and actions of the Cardinal-Bishop of Perugia which raised him higher in the esteem of the much-tried Pontiff. The festivities in Perugia were, therefore, a sort of national feast, in which all Umbria, Rome, and Italy joined. Even the Piedmontese masters of Umbria thought it best not to thwart the popular will on that meraorable 17th of January, 1871. The procession to the cathedral was even more magnificent than in 1854, when Perugia, still Papal, and the country population round about filled the beautiful Piazza and the adjoining streets. The inscrip tion above the great central door spoke of " the Acts and Prayers of the Clergy of Perugia " on this solemn anniver sary, f The omission of the word " people " or " citizens " was significant of the great change which had taken place, and of the prudence iraposed on the ministers of religion. But far more significant of the temper of the tiraes and of the triak religion was then undergoing is the fact that * See Appendix D. f Acta et vota — Cleri perusini. 268 LIFE OF LEO XIII. all day, from early dawn till evening, the Blessed Sacra ment was exposed in the cathedral as on occasions when there is some great and urgent need of supplicating the divine mercy. All day priests and people succeeded each other before the niercy-seat. At ten o'clock in the morning the Cardinal celebrated Pontifical Mass. At noon there was a raeeting of clergy and citizens at the episcopal residence ; a joint address of congratulation was read to the good pastor, and a joint testiraonial of gratitude and veneration presented in the forra of a bronze statue of Mary Immaculate, a work of the sculptor Cecchini, a Perugian, which had obtained the first premium in Rorae the year before. In the afternoon there were Pontifical Vespers, a ser raon on the Christian Priesthood, Te Deum, and Benedic tion. The vota or prayers recorded for the Cardinal- Bishop are too reraarkable to be omitted here : " Mary, Mother of Grace, * who art the protectress, honor, and joy of the people of Perugia, do thou some day repay with a crown of glory Joachim, our Cardinal- Bishop, in return for the golden diadem which his filial hands formerly placed around thy virginal brow. " Holy Lawrence, thou who art given a command over nature, be propitious, we pray thee, to Joachim, our Car dinal and pastor ; grant him to the end of his life that strength with which thou didst appall thy executioners whilst consumed b}' the slow tortures of thy red-hot grid iron, in order that the men who are continually torturing the Church by their plots raay admire him in spite of themselves." f How prophetic of the years following 1878! *The Virgin Mary is called in the Litany "the Mother of Divine Grace " because she gave birth to the Redeemer, the Author and Fount of grace. A votive church near Perugia bore also the title of Our Lady of Grace. In it was a picture or statue of Our Lady which Cardinal Pecci had crowned on a former occasion. ¦j-The Roman deacon, St. Lawrence, was treasurer of the church, or the depositary of the fund destined to the poor. He was roasted on a gridiron over a slow fire, to force him to give up the moneys which he had already distribuled to the need}'. LABORS AS A MEMBER OF J HE .SACRKP COIl.F.CE. 269 "Constantius and Hcrculanus, bishops and mart}'is, since to you once fell the care of this church, bid our Car dinal-Bishop Joachim to govern the clergy and people of Perugia, under }-our guidance and protection, for many times five years raore." * in. MADE PROTECTOR OF THE FRANCISCAN TERTIARIES. Pius IX. about this time, when the infirmities of old age, the sorrows heaped upon the Religious Orders and the secular clergy of Italy, and the perplexities of his situa tion in Rome rendered the counsels and presence of such men as Cardinal Pecci a need of the heart as well as a po htical necessity, urged on the latter the acceptance of the see of Frascati, one of the suburban sees of Rorae. The change would have enabled the Cardinal to live in the Eternal City, and to be thus within call of the Sovereign Pontiff. But Cardinal Pecci was bound by so raany strong ties to the church of Perugia that he could not think of separa tion from it so long as the Pope allowed hira the freedom of choice. Besides, during these troublous and perilous years the bishops of all Central Italy stood sadly in need of the friendly sympathy and timely advice of one so universally revered as the Bishop of Perugia. The Holy See, as in all cases where an accurate know ledge of ecclesiastical law and usage, a great experience in dealing with vexed questions, and consummate prudence were necessary, commissioned Cardinal Pecci to settle the difficulties occurring. Together with these frequent and delicate negotiations, he had his share — no light share — in the heavy and manifold labors imposed on all the members of the Sacred College. They have to assist the Pope in governing the universal Church ; the congrega tions or permanent committees into which they are di- *These early martyrs were, under God, the parents of Christianity in Perugia. Herculanus was a disciple of St. Peter. 270 LIFE OP LEO XIIL vided are charged with all the various and complex mat ters pertaining to so vast an administration. Cardinal Pecci was a member of no less than six of these congregations, and the matters referred to him in this connection alone were more than sufficient to tax the time and abilities of no ordinary man. But his life of austere simplicity and well-regulated labortousness enabled him, seeraingly, to despatch with ease any amount of business. Rising before the dawn, even in the longest summer days, he was early at the altar, and had paid his debt of worship and devotion when the ordinary occupations of the day claimed his attention. His frugality was that of a hermit ; for, while doing nobly the offices of hosprtality to invited guests or passing strangers, he allowed himself no indulgence. But these habits of personal austerity and almost raonastic asceticisra were the hidden secrets of his interior life, known only to the few adraitted to his utraost intimacy. To all others whom he received and en tertained with the dignity and courtesy of a prince, the rigor with which he treated himself could only be guessed frora the atraosphere of sweet spirituality which surround ed the raan. That he inspired sincere affection and deep attachment raingled with veneration has been well proved by the num bers of those who still cherish his meraory in Perugia, and who emulate both his stainless life and his scholarly quali ties. In 1875 Pius IX., aware of the life-long admiration of Cardinal Pecci for St. Francis of Assisi and the great family of men and women who for the last six hundred years follow in- his footsteps, appointed him Protector of the Third Order of St. Francis — an organization estab lished by the saint to enable all persons living in the world to combine and help each other in practising the cardinal virtues of the Gospel. To help in any way toward restoring the Franciscan institutions to all their primitive vigor and splendor, to A SPIRIT UA L PEA ST A T A SSI SI. 2 7 I make known all over the earth the heavenly spirit of the Saint of Assisi, the passionate lover of Christ crucified and the devoted follower of Christ's poverty, was to Cardinal Pecci a labor of love, one into which he could throw him self with all the ardor of }'outh. He proceeded to Assisi as soon as he possibly could, and there, on November 26, in an assemblage of all the Franciscan Tertiaries, of the clergy regular and secular, and a great cro'^vd of people, he took formal possession of his new charge. The address which he delivered on that occasion was only the prelude to raore soleran and au thoritative utterances in later years, as we shall see. "When, a fow days ago," he said, " His Holiness Pius IX. was pleased to appoint rae Protector of the Confrater nity of the Third Order of St. Francis, which sprang up so many centuries ago in this very city, my heart overflowed with joy. From my infancy I was devoted to this great saint, and have been ever an admirer of his heroic virtues ; and I have always looked upon the Third Order founded by him as upon an institution springing from divine inspi ration, one replete with Christian wisdom and fruitful in most blessed results for religion and the entire huraan race. " To eraploy one's self in favoring and spreading such an order is to foster a work of the highest benefit to reli gion, to morality, and to civilization ; it is to supply a salu tary remedy for the enormous evils which afflict society, and to restore upon earth the reign of holy charity and every virtue. Oh ! may God grant that araid all the dis asters which sadden our souls, and the raisery araid which we are compelled to live, we may see with our own eyes a mighty multitude hastening to take refuge under the pro tection of the poverty-loving Saint of Assisi ! Then we should, without a doubt, see those men becoming, in the hand of God, so many instruments employed in re-estab lishing on earth the quiet we have lost and the peace for which men pray so ardently." Although the most popular writers of our age in the English language, those most bitterly opposed to the Ca- 272 LIFE OP LEO XIII. tholic Church, have bestowed praise on hira whom Cardinal Pecci calls in his text the Poverello d' Assisi, no man has been held up to so rauch contempt by French Voltaireanism, by the Revolutionists, Radicals, and Socialists, who so clamor ously profess their love for democratic simplicity, equality, and liberty. In the invasion of Italy and Spain by the re volutionary armies under the Bonapartes no monastic order, no religious establishraents were the objects of such fanati cal hatred or subjected to such horrible profanations and wanton destruction as the Franciscans, their churches and convents. And the raen who to-day raisgovern both coun tries under the banner of liberalism have inherited this same blind, inconsistent, and unreasoning fanaticism. Since the Divine Author of Christianity was born in a cave by the roadside, brought up in the laborious obscurity of the carpenter's shop, and evangelized Judea and Galilee, without possessing a roof of his own, a bed to repose upon, or a second garment for his use, no raan has appeared upon earth who raore sincerely, ardently, effectively labored to raake the poverty of the Gospel, its practical equality and brotherly love — all the divine charities which blossom and ripen upon <-he cross of Christ — to be loved truly and em braced heartily than Francis of Assisi. His dream, his aira, the object of his entire life was to bring back the Christendom, the society of the thirteenth century to that democracy, that society of all mankind become children of God and living on earth, according to Christ's doctrine and example, in the practice of all bro therly virtues. If this was a dream it was a sublime, a beautiful dream, one which should render the narae of the dreamer dear to all lovers of humanity, all believers in the possibility of establishing here below a society in which order and free dom, equality and justice, charity and religion shall be no visions of the brain, no subjects of idle aspiration or boot less quest, but a mighty, ever-present Reality ! And how amiable, in every noble sense of the word, was that voluntary mendicant of Assisi, who called around him 2 74 LIFE OF LEO XIII. raen born, like hiraself, to wealth and station, but who aimed only at practising anew upon earth the absolute and per fect poverty practised by Christ and His Apostles and Dis ciples, their meekness, patience, and unbounded charity, in order that the Spirit which made their own poor cells so fragrant of paradise might penetrate into the palaces of the great, the homes of the wealthy, the cottages of the laboring poor, and be like the attraction of a divine mag netism drawing all raen and woraen, not, indeed, to become monks and nuns, but to band theraselves together for the purpose of despising the pride of earthly riches, the en- joyraent of sinful luxury and pleasure, of seeking out the needy, the suffering, the heart-sore, and the captive, and of making of brotherly love the law of life for Christian so ciety. The men who wanted to be Christ-like in poverty, in self-denial and self-sacrificing devotion to their fellow-men, followed Francis in his manner of living. The women, under St. Clara, or Clare, the townsworaan of Francis, emu lated the poverty and virtues of Mary, the Mother of Christ, whora He on the cross gave to the fisherman, John, the son of Zebedee, to be cared for as a raother, homeless and shelterless as she was. Men and women living in the world who desired, in the raeasure possible to thera, to imitate Christ and His Mo ther, and to bring back among the late Christian society the brotherly love, the gentleness, the spirit of prayer, the tender care of the poor and sick, which the Acts of the Apostles describe as existing in the first Christian com munity in Jerusalem, became raerabers of the Third Order. Within the saint's lifetirae it counted more than half a mil lion of persons of every condition of life, from kings and queens to peasants and shepherds. St. Louis, King of France, and his cousin, St. Ferdinand of Castile and Leon, with their mothers and their queens, with many a heroic noble and knight in their service, and many a noble ma tron and maiden in their courts, and crowds of their sub jects, undertook to practise the evangelical morality and all THE BEA UTIPUL SPIRIT AND LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 2 75 its divine virtues raore faithfully under the protection of that lowly mendicant of Assisi. Let us not be turned aside from the contemplation of noble ideals because men have failed to make of them permanent and widespread practical realities. We should never effect any reform or improvement in our own lives or in the world around us if we allowed ourselves to be cast down by the inconsistencies and failures of men who had begun well and then fallen away. Let us listen rather to the men who, in the present need of society and the whole moral world, endeavor to revive in thera selves and to restore wherever their influence extends the divine spirit of heroic perfection which aniraated men long ago, and which, like the seeds of the noblest plants, God never allows to perish utterly frora the face of the earth. Such a man was and is Joachim Pecci. From his earliest boyhood his feet had trodden the bare cloisters of the Franciscan Observantines near his mother's home in Carpineto. His admiration for these faithful followers of the Saint of Assisi had grown with his growth. As a youth, a priest, the governor of prov inces, the honored diplomat, the bishop, and the cardinal, he had known these Franciscan lovers of evangelical pov erty — known them thoroughly — and his veneration had gone on increasing. The Third Order of Seculars, or per sons living in the world, had becorae extinct, or nearly so, under the joint action of Voltairean ridicule and revolu tionary violence. Honestly, conscientiously Joachim Pecci beheved that to revive the spirit and the rule of St. Francis of Assisi, to propagate this Secular Third Order among all ranks of the Christian people, would be the providential means to renew the face of the earth. We believe that in our day practice is raore potent than preaching, exaraple than mere profession. We believe, if ever the countries of ancient Christendora are brought back to Christ, it raust be, not by the eloquence of a St. Paul, a St. Bernard, or a Bossuet, but by diviner exaraples 276 LIFE OF LEO XIII. of poverty, purity, self-denial, and self-sacrifice than even those beheld in the Apostolic age. Men who remember how prepotent feudalism had marred, at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, the fairest fruits of the Christian culture of preceding age?, and how railitary raight, vio lence, and licentiousness were the only forces, apparently, which controlled, or aimed at controlling, European society will not be astonished that Providence, in seeking to re store the Christian ideal, should have inspired the Poverelh of Assisi to becorae in his life and person a living image of the Divine Master. We have followed his footsteps in Italy and Spain from the hills above Bologna to Florence and Rome, and from Rome to Barcelona and all along the pilgrim's road to Ga- licia and the sepulchre of St. James. Men like Charles Dickens and Ruskin can understand and appreciate the beautiful legends which weave themselves around the su pernatural life of a man so divine — how the blood gushing from his self-imposed austerities and falling on the thorny shrubs in winter, forthwith was transformed into flowers of supernal hue and fragrance ; how, in the province of Vich, a barren tract to which the saint withdrew to meditate and pray became a land of flowers, while the fountain at which he cooled the ardor of the consuming fire within him be came a fount of healing waters. No wonder that beneath those feet, which he yearned to stretch out to the nails that pierced his Master's, our earth, athirst for Christ-like holiness, meekness, and charity, should spontaneously put forth flowers unseen before. We need such men now ; we shall need them more in the evil days the world has to pass through till from out the extremity of ill shall come the salutary reaction. CHAPTER XVIII. 1S77. THE LAST YEAR IN PERUGIA. — I. CARDINAL PECCI AT THE GOLDEN JUBILEE OF PIUS IX. *^^HE Catholic world is not likely to forget that the %^ year 1877 was celebrated in both hemispheres as the Episcopal Jubilee of Pius IX. He had been consecrat ed bishop in Rome on June 3, 1827. His fiftieth anniver sary, in spite of the occupation of the Eternal City by the Piedmontese, was celebrated there with a solemnity and an enthusiasm such as even Christian Rome had never wit nessed. Foreseeing the spontaneous and irresistible outburst of Catholic sentiment all over Italy on the coming anniver sary, the revolutionary Parliaraent sitting in Rome brought in " The Clerical Abuses Bill," enacting the severest pen alties against all persons, clergymen especially, of every grade, who under any circumstances, in public or in pri vate, should give utterance to words censuring the acts of the government. A priest in the confessional or called to administer the last. sacraments to the dying, by the mere refusal of absolution to the worst criminals, to the plunder ers of the Church or the direct authors of the worst ca lamities under which she was suffering, would, on the cora- plaint of the false penitent, be liable to fine, iraprisonraent, ¦or banishment frora Italy. It was one of the objects of this law, as its authors did not hesitate to avow in the legisla ture, that, although they could not punish the Pope hiraself without violating the Law of Guarantees, yet they could punish any inferior ecclesiastic who should dare to publish or print the Pope's utterances censuring the acts of the government. The celebration of the Golden Jubilee all over Italy, 2 78 LIFE OF LEO XIIL together with the raanifestations and addresses which it would give rise to, naturally would afford the enemies of the Papacy the opportunity of reaping a rich harvest in fines and vindictiveness. But Pius IX., though grieving for the consequences of this tyrannical law to the Italian clergy, was not to be in timidated by the threats of the triumphant Revolution. In the consistory of March 12 he denounced the bill and the government to the whole civilized world. The infirmi ties which bent his aged frame could not bend that in vincible spirit of his. " By this law," he says to the as sembled cardinals, and through them to all Christendom, " the words and writings of every description uttered by the ministers of the altar in the discharge of their sacred office, and expressing disapproval or censure of any act or decree of the civil authorities, though such act or decree may be never so opposed to the laws of God or of His Church, are equally liable to punishment." The ordinary civil courts alone have a right to decide whether or not a priest is justified in refusing absolution to a penitent under sentence of excomraunication, even when the priest has no power to absolve him, or whether he may rightly withhold the sacraraents frora the sick and the dying, irrespective of the di-spositions and fitness of these to receive thera. But this, as well as the penalties iraposed on all who dare to proraulgate the judgments of the Holy See on its own inalienable rights and the wrongs it endures at the hands of the oppressor, was in tended to intimidate the Sovereign Pontiff himself in the exercise of his spiritual power. " How is it possible for us," Pius IX. exclaims in his righteous indignation, " to govern the Church under the domination of a power which continually deprives us of the raeans and protection needed for the discharge of our apostolic office? . . . We cannot sufficiently wonder that raen can be found who . . . endeavor to have the world believe, and to persuade the popular raasses, that the pre sent position of the Sovereign Pontiff in Rome is such THE GOLDEN JUBILEE OF PIUS IX. 279 that, even situated, as he is, under the domination of an other power, he is in the enjoyment of full freedom, and is able peacefully and unrestrictedly to discharge the duties of his spiritual primacy." There was a disposition in government and parliamen tary circles to oppose efficacious obstacles to the approach ing celebration in Rome by closing the entrance of Italy to the numerous bands of pilgrims from foreign lands, and to forbid the railway companies from transporting Italian pilgrims and deputations to Rome. In that city itself the anti-clerical clubs only demanded that the government should look on without interfering while they took on themselves to prevent or to mar all displays in honor of the Pope's anniversary. But although in sorae places pil grims and deputations were treated soraewhat roughly, the movement was too general and too raighty to be stopped all of a sudden ; besides, the influx of strangers was to bring to the railroad corapanies and to Rome itself too bountiful a harvest not to be acceptable in the great penury of gold from which Italy and the government were suffering. So self-interest prevailed over political passion and anti- Christian intrigues, and the Golden Jubilee ran its course of unparalleled enthusiasm. By a singular and unusual oversight no mention is made in the narrative in another work of the Author* of the part taken in the celebration by the hierarchy of the Papal States — the .^Emilia, the Marches, and Umbria. And yet among the imposing pageants which succeeded each other in the Vatican in June, 1877, none exceeded in importance and effect that in which figured the cardinals, the arch bishops and bishops belonging to the forraer States of the Church, having at their head the venerable figure of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Perugia. He had been requested by his colleagues in the pastoral office to draw up and deliver in their name the address of felicitation. This, for hira, was a labor of love. *" Life of Pius IX.," New York, 1877. 28o LIPE OF LEO XIII. On the morning of the 3d of June Pius IX. could have imagined that the bishops of all Italy surrounded him, for all who could come and were privileged to be there on the occasion accompanied the glorious gathering at whose head shone Cardinal Pecci. This assemblage was the chief and central one in the long series of the Jubilee demonstrations. One might have thought that the entire episcopate of Italy was there, and that its spokesman was the Archbishop- Bishop of Perugia, every one of whose public utterances for the twenty past years had sounded like a trumpet-note through the Peninsula, warning pastors and people to pre pare for the impending battle with Revolution and anti- Christian corruption. So there, at the head of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, stood the white-haired prelate who was to be called Leo XIII. and Lumen in Ccelo ere another June had come with its flowers, and who now poured out the warm tribute of his soul at the feet of Pius IX., Crux de Cruce, already in the last agony of his long crucifixion. Let us listen : " Most Holy Father : Surely it is by an admirable design of God's providence that while under your Pon tificate the worst enemies of the Catholic Church and of her Divine Head, Christ, were permitted to wage against both the raost bitter war which the raemory of man can re call in the past ages as well as in the present, we should, on the other hand, be given to behold a succession of happy events bringing into the most prorainent light the ardent love of the Christian worid for the Church and the raost faithful obedience toward the Apostolic Chair. " More than that, the more skilfully devised were the plans of our adversaries, the more successful did the as saults of the revolutionary sects prove — thanks to the con nivance or the aid of the temporal powers — the more close ly, on the other hand, did faith and charity draw souls together araong the Catholic nations, the nearer did the bonds of union draw the flock to the shepherd, the children to their parent, the firraer appeared the faith of all in the Pontifical authority, the more constantly, O Most Holy CARDINAL PECCI ADDRESSING PIUS IX. 28 1 Father! shone forth the love of the whole world for your person. " We cannot help feeling that events are directed to ward a happy and prosperous issue when we see the faith ful of every land pouring as pilgrim-crowds toward the Vatican, or laying their liberal offerings of Peter's Pence at your feet, uniting in solemn and public prayer or giving vent in some other way to the coraraon joy, all striving in concert to celebrate the happy anniversary of that day on which, fifty years ago, God gave you to be consecrated a bishop. "Therefore it is, Mo.st Holy Father, that we, the pas tors' of your provinces, especially those of the Marches, Umbria, and ^^irailia, and the flocks confided to us, can yield in fervor to none both in our dutiful obedience to you, in our reverence for the suprerae power of Peter, and in ourenthusiasra in celebrating this most happy day. You ¦were born in the Marches, of the noble blood of Sinigaglia ; happy Umbria first received you as a bishop, and first of all the church of Spoleto had the benefit of your labors and was graced by your virtues ; and, last, .(Emilia, glorified by your pastoral care and the splendor of your Roraan purple, sent you to Rorae to ascend the sublirae chair of Peter. " Hence, while in our own narae we again and again renew to you to-day the solemn profession of our inviolable union with this same Apostolic Chair of Peter, and of our loving devotion to your person, we also declare, in the deepest joy of our hearts, that both our priests and our people share with us this same solemn profession and heartfelt sentiments. Manifold as are the frauds and the violence by which ungodly raen unceasingly try to shake their constancy in the Christian religion, they nevertheless ever remain bound to you by unswerving obedience, and from their inmost soul accept the teachings which your infallible authority sanctions. They unite with us in be seeching hurably and fervently the Divine Prince of Pastors to pour down on you with unsparing hand the fulness of 282 LIPE OP LEO XIII. His choicest gifts, comforting and directing you in the bit ter trials which press upon you, saving and preserving you for the honor and increase of religion, for the defence and support of His Church. That you raay have also some visible proof, though never so sraall, of the raost dutiful love and reverence which we and they bear you, we pray you to accept. Most Holy Father, the little offering they freely raake to relieve your own need, and which we beg you to estiraate frora the love of the givers, not from its raaterial araount. " It only reraains. Most Holy Father, that you, who love us all, bestow on ourselves and on all the faithful people of our dioceses, who have so much to contend with in the pre sent difficult times of revolution, the Apostolic Benedic tion, which shall bring thera wisdora and strength. This we ask for all the raore readily that we have good reason to hope that God, at your prayer, on this day of great joy to yourself and your children, will pour down forthwith on all of us the plentiful strearas of heavenly blessing." * Pius IX., touched not only by the sentiments expressed in this noble address, but the dignified and reverent bear ing of the venerable speaker, could not refrain from ex pressing his gratification and his thanks. It was, indeed, as if the churches of the Marches, of Umbria, and ^Emilia, so unspeakably dear to hira, surrounded hira, broken by ex trerae old age and suffering, to lift up their voices to bless hira, and their hands to pray for hira, their Pontiff and Parent. The raerabers of the episcopal deputation pre sent also expressed their sentiraents of adrairation. But Cardinal Pecci was little moved by praise, even when com ing from the lips of the raost revered of Popes, and from those of his raost respected brother-bishops. While in Rorae he was privileged to consecrate the new coadjutor-bishop given to him by the Holy Father. This was Monsignor Charles Laurenzi, who had been his vicar-general ever since 1847, sharing his labors, his solici- * " Scelta," p. 403. ATTEMPTS TO MAR THE UNIVERSAL JOY. 283 tude, and his trials, deserving and enjoying the Cardinal's unbounded confidence. The episcopal consecration took place in the ancient churcii of St. Chrysogonus, one of the oldest in Rome, situated in the Transtiberine quarter of the city, and the Cardinal's own titular church. As the summer passed away the crowds of pilgrims con tinued to flock into Rome and to press onward to the Vati can. It was a sight which the Rome of the Popes had not beheld, and may never again behold. But the Revolution ists could not bear the sight of this spontaneous horaage of love and veneration paid to an infirra old man whom their usurpation had forced to confine himself to the walls and gardens of the Vatican. There was a turaultuous raeeting held by the leaders in the Apollo Theatre to protest against the pilgrimages and the presence in Rome of all these strangers. But they forgot only one thing — that these raen and women from every Christian land were not strangers in Rome, in the Rome which Christendora and the Popes had created, and which was the horae of the Coraraon Parent. They forgot, too, that many a barbarous dynasty and tribe had ere then possessed theraselves of Rorae and believed that their possession of it would last for ever. History has told how soon their throne and their sway had vanished. And, besides, Christendom has not yet set the seal of its unanimous and formal international sanction on the pre sent usurpation. There are those who persist in thinking that Rome will be again the City of the Pope-King. II. THE OLD CAMERLENGO AND THE NEW. Death was busy araong the raost illustrious cardinals in 1877. We have seen that while Monsignor Pecci was yet in the College of Nobles one of his dearest corapanions there was Duke Riario-Sforza, afterward Cardinal-Arch bishop of Naples. This descendant of the great warrior- chief who had placed hiraself on the throne of Milan, and had been on the point of subjecting all Italy to his sway. 284 LIFE OP LEO XIII. was one of those raen who, called to the priesthood by divine inspiration, justify the divine choice by a hfe of supernatural devotion to God and man. A Roman by birth, ranking with the highest, but lifted above all earthly ambitions and sentiraents by his ardent desire to serve God, His Church, and Italy to the best of his power, no thing could ever induce him to sanction by act or word of his the designs of the Italian liberals. He accepted with gratitude his appointment to the see of Naples, because he had been led to believe that in that city he would be free, far away from the theatre of con spiracies and revolutions, to devote all his energies, under a Catholic conservative government, to the advancement of the spiritual welfare of a large, needy, and neglected pop ulation. How that good archbishop labored in Naples; how he spent his fortune, his strength, his life in seeking the lost sheep of the flock, in bringing thera back to the fold and tenderly caring for thera ; how he sought out souls suffer ing frora sin and sorrow, and lifted thera up into newness of life ; how the poor, the sick, the plague-stricken were dearer to hira than children to their raother — contemporary history has told. Some day, perhaps, this holy archbishop, whom even the pens of Protestants and unbelievers have canonized because of his unearthly goodness, will receive the honors due to God's acknowledged saints. At any rate, in 1877 this great and good man, equally dear to Pius IX. and to Cardinal Pecci, was taken to his rest. Both the Pontiff and the. Cardinal envied him while sincerely mourn ing his loss. But " Riario-Sforza had been preceded in the tomb by Cardinal Philip de Angelis, Archbishop of Fermo, who had presided at the Council of the Vatican, and died on July 8. Of the other four cardinals who had shared with him the honor of presiding over that august assembly, the only ones who survived the year 1877 were Cardinals Bilio and De Luca, Cardinals Bizzari and Capalti having suc- curabed during this year of Jubilee. The loss of De An- CARDINAL PHILIP DE ANGELIS. 285 o-elis was most keenly felt by the Holy Father. They were both natives of the Marches, born within a month of each other on that same sunny shore of the Adriatic ; raised tO' the purple, the one in 183S, the other in 1839; brought still nearer to each other by their passionate devotion to- the interests of the Church and the unworldly spirit which animated their whole lives. During the conclave of June, 1846, De Angelis was the raan to whora Cardinal Mastai gave his vote, and Cardinal Mastai was the choice of De Angelis for the dangerous honor of the Pontificate. While the one friend (the Pope) was forced to seek in the king dom of Naples the liberty needed to govern the universal Church, the other was assailed by the revolutionists in his residence at Fermo, dragged like a malefactor to the pri sons of Ancona, and there, during forty days, subjected to the most horrible brutality, attempts having even been made to destroy his life by poison. Later, in i860, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Fermo was once raore carried off to prison, this tirae in Turin, and endured a six years' captivity." * Such were the men — great in everything which consti tutes moral grandeur— to whom Cardinal Pecci, like the Pope, was bound by ties of a friendship that is not all of earth. How many such stood around Pius IX. in the solemn sessions of the Council of the Vatican ! How many on that raemorable morning of June 3, 1877, surrounded the aged form of the Pontiff, on whose brow the first radiance of eternal day already rested, on whose spirit, amid the benedictions of the Old World and the New, the sweet shadows of the peace everlasting were fall ing fast ! Cardinal de Angelis was one to whose heroic devotion, saintly virtues, and tried prudence Pius IX. could trust, as to an own brother, in the greatest emergencies, the dearest interests of the Church. This unlimited confidence had induced him to select the Cardinal-Archbishop of Fermo * "Life of Pius IX.," pp. 521-22, eighteenth ed.. New York, 1878. 286 LIFE OF LEO XIII. for the important charge of Camerlengo of the Roman Church — a charge involving, during the vacancy of the Papal Chair, the suprerae authority to adrainister the tem poralities of the Holy See. Cardinal Pecci's ill-health corapelled hira to remain in Rorae all through this raeraorable suraraer. He returned to Perugia toward the end of August to superintend the last exarainations in the serainary and to preside at the distribution of preraiums. Thus to the last was he faithful to his old love for his church and the young clergy. In the midst of September came the tidings that it was the intention of the Holy Father to proclaira him Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church in the approaching consistory. Thus was he to inherit the trust of Cardinal de Angelis. The letter which brought hira this announcement also con veyed an invitation from Pius IX. to take up his residence in Rome, leaving Monsignor Laurenzi to administer the diocese of Perugia. III. THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS FALLS ON CARDINAL PECCI. The Pope, who felt that the end for hira was nigh, felt also that he bequeathed to his Cardinal Camerlengo a responsibility beset by unprecedented difficulties. In choosing Cardinal Pecci he seeraed to be ratifying the choice of the united bishops of all Italy. To no more firm or prudent hand could the direction of affairs be commit ted when his own last hour had corae. While the summer and autumn of 1877 passed slowly away, the Jubilee still drawing crowds of pilgrims to the feet of Pius IX., the strength of the venerable invalid was slowly but surely waning. Winter came, and the Catholic world kept its eyes and its heart fixed on those rooms in the Vatican where the self-sacrificing Pontiff daily received his children, causing hiraself to be carried through their ranks, blessing, consoling, and strengthening them with words which all treasured ever after in their memory. LAST PASTORAL LETTERS TO THE PERUGLINS. 287 Meanwhile, and undeterred by the carej of his new charge and the unceasing occupations attached to his posi tion in Rome, Cardinal Pecci was preparing to do for his beloved flock in Perugia what he had ever done yearl}' since he had been their bishop : he was about to address them for the Lent of 1878 a second pastoral letter on "The Church and Civilization." Such were the lofty arguments he chose to treat in instructing his people on the prevalent errors of the day, and the truths which were the surest an tidote to the intellectual poison. Now that we are acquainted with the solid Christian instruction on all points of doctrine and practice which Cardinal Pecci had been unwearied in giving to his flock for thirty-two years, we can admire the wisdom of the man in lifting up priests and people to the attentive study of such living and momentous questions as that which he un dertook to treat in the three last Lenten pastorals which he composed for them: in 1876, "The Catholic Church and the Nineteenth Century"; in 1877 and 1878, "The Church and Civilization." IV. THE LIGHT STILL SHINING BRIGHTLY ON PERUGIA. In his pastoral for the Lenten season, 1877, we have, both in the logical treatraent of the subject and the sira plicity with which the arguraent at every stage is presented to the intelligence of the ordinary peasant and workingman, a model for ah churchmen deahng with such raatters. As to the exquisite elegance and harraony of the original Ital ian we cannot say too rauch. "The duty which our pastoral ministry," he says, "has always imposed on us to preach the truth to you has be come more pressing at this raoraent, because of your own increasing need in the midst of an unhappy age. We must speak to you to enlighten your minds, which others are trying to darken by fallacious and seductive doctrines ; and we must put you on your guard against certain say ings which are scattered abroad, and which are found to be 288 LIFE OF LEO XIIL dangerous in the extreme. Above all, we need to speak to you in order to do away with the confusion which is so dexterously introduced in the popularized ideas that one does not know clearly that which has been condemned as false from that which, being true and correct, is adopted as such. " Wherefore, dearest children, the war carried on against God and His Church is all the more forraidable in this, that it is not always waged loyally, but conducted with fraud and treachery. If the irapious men who live in our raidst would only speak out and tell us what they are aim ing at, our task would be a very easy one ; while, on the other hand, the faithful, perceiving the enormity of their guilty intentions, would be easily dissuaded from lending an ear to these deceivers. This, however, is not the way they go about their work ; they, on the contrary, use terms which flatter their hearers, which not bearing any one pre cise meaning, these men throw, without explaining their sense, as food to the curiosity of the public. . . . " We might quote here many instances of these arti fices ; but, to mention only one word which misbelievers make such abuse of, who does not know how great a noise is in our day raade about civilization, as if between it and the Church there existed an intrinsic repugnance, an irre concilable hostility? " This word, which in itself is a vague term, one which those who use it are careful not to define, has become a kind of scourge which they hold over our shoulders, an engine for levelling our most sacred institutions, the means of paving the way to the most deplorable excesses. " If pfeople turn into ridicule the word of God and of him who represents God on earth, it is because civilization requires it. " It is civilization which demands that a limit should be put to the number of churches and of the ministers of worship, and which, on the contrary, asks to have the den? of sin multiplied. " It is civilization which calls for theatres without good " THE CHURCH AND CIVILIZATION." 289 taste and without any respect for modesty. In the name of civilization they gi\'e usurers liberty to exact the raost enormous interest, and speculators to realize the raost dis honest gains. " It is in the name of civilization that an iraraoral press poisons souls ; that art, prostituting itself, defiles the sense with hideous figures, and thus opens up the way to corrupt the heart. " All the while, beneath the charra of this spell-word, held on high as an honored banner, the pestilential ideas it covers are disseminated freely, and between the loud clash of ideas and the noise which confuses and deafens this impression is produced : that we are to be blamed if civilization does not spread raore rapidly and does not rise to more splendid destinies. "Hence the beginning of that struggle {Kulturkampf) which its authors call the battle for civilization, but which with greater propriety should be called the violent oppres sion of the Church." In the pastoral of 1878, addressed frora Rorae to his beloved flock, his deeply cherished attachraent for them breaks forth, as it were, against his will. He is about to begin his sixty-ninth year ; is it not tirae for him also to lay down the burden of care he has borne so long, instead of contemplating with dread the possibilities of the future? He says to his Perugians : " Closely connected with you, as we have been, during all these long years by the holy bonds of the pastoral min istry, and by mutual relations which have ever begotten an interchange of affectionate sentiraents, we feel now, dearest children, how heavy is the weight of a separation which, however justified by reasons the raost iraperative, is still grievous to us. In this state of raind we look forward, as you can weh imagine, with no little satisfaction to the near approach of the holy season of Lent, when we can break our enforced silence and address you words of pastoral in struction. " Since, therefore, we raay not return to your midst in 290 LLFE OF LEO XIII. person, we do so by this letter, in order to converse wilh you and to gather mutual comfort from the interchange of our common sentiments of faith. These are the consola tions which God keeps in store for bishops to make up for much sorrow and bitterness. For what can be more grate ful to us than to hold converse with the flock who are our crown, our dearest joy ; than to speak to thera of God, and of His Christ, and of His holy Church, of the duties of our religion and of its immortal hopes, and to repeat to them the apostolic words : ' Therefore, my dearly beloved brethren and most desired, my joy and my crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved ' ? " Christian Rome— -and in Christian Rome the Vatican- offered, as the year 1878 dawned upon the world, as Janu ary slowly passed away and found the gentle spirit of Pius IX. still hovering on the very borders of the peace eternal, a spectacle never before beheld. " Around the aged Pontiff had been dropping off day by day the men whom he had most loved and trusted, who had passed with him through the flood and the flame. He and three or four members of the Sacred College were left standing, all stripped and scarred by storm and light ning, like those venerable trees of the Californian forest towering on the hillside in their weird and solitary gran deur, while at their feet lie the fallen trunks of their for mer contemporaries, and around stand a younger growth, dwarfed only into comparative inferiority by their giant elders, the sole survivors of a remote age. " Not long, however, in spite of the fervent prayers of the Catholic world, did the heroic old man survive ths friends of his youth and his intrepid associates in peril and persecution. The joys which flooded his soul, as well as the cruel apprehensions caused by the steady triumph of extrerae and undisguised radicalism in the Italian cabi net, much more than the superhuman fatigues of the Jubi lee receptions, were too much for a man in his eighty-sixth year." * *The Author's " Life of Pius IX.," eighteenth edition, p. 522' DEA TH OF PIUS IX. 2g I Conspicuous among tiie few venerable cardinals wlio thus gathered around the couch of the long-lived Pontiff, the most trusted and not the least beloved w.is the Canli- nal Camerlengo. Death had come to close the eyes of the weary old man, for whom the long Pontificate of thirty- two years had been little less than the agony of a pro longed martyrdom. He had almost designated his succes sor to the choice of the Sacred College. And when this death had happened Cardinal Pecci had not yet concluded the pastoral letter quoted a few pages back. He hastened at once, while his own soul was under the effect of this saintly ending to an eventful life, to con clude his Lenten instruction, dating it frora the loth of February. " And here, dearest children," he says, " having come to this point, our heart must give vent to the grief which op presses it, having to recall to your raind the sad event which has plunged the Catholic world in raourning, and has befallen us at a tirae when the evils heaped on the Church were at their heaviest. When I began to write this letter I was far frora thinking that our glorious Pontiff and most loving Father would be so suddenly snatched away. I was hoping, on the contrary, that he would be re stored to better health, that I raight once more ask his Apostolic benediction for you, and beg you in return to pray for your chief and parent. God in His designs has deemed it better that it should not be so. He has has tened for His servant the reward merited by the long and precious labors undergone for the Church, our common mother, by his imraortal deeds, by the sufferings endured with such constancy, dignity, and firraness. " Dear fellow-laborers, do not forget to make mention, in the Holy Sacrifice, of this soul in which God had print ed so vivid an image of Hiraself. Speak to your flocks of his merits, and tell thera how much this great Pope had done not only for the Church and for souls, but also to promote the reign of Christian civilization. ... I beseech you, dearest brethren and beloved children, to ask earnestly 292 LIFE OF LEO XIII. of God to grant soon a Head to the Church, and to cover him when he is chosen with the shield of His power in order that the Bark of Peter raay be safely guided through the surging waters to the wished- for haven." Part Fourth. THE PONTIFICATE.— LUMEN IX CCELO. 293 CHAPTER XIX. THE CONCLAVE — LEO XIII. ONE of the last acts of Pius IX. was a solemn pro test sent in his narae by the Secretary of State, Cardinal Simeoni, to the representatives of the Holy See at the various courts. It bore the date of January 17, 1878, the eighth day after the death of King Victor Emmanuel in the Quirinal Palace. Umberto I. had suc ceeded to the throne thus founded by the Revolution and placed in the habitual residence of the Popes. The Pon tiff, who was so soon to follow the persecutor and spoliator to the judgment-seat, and who was so conscious of his dread nearness to it, protested in this document " that he maintained intact, as against the iniquitous spoliation, the right of the Church to her raost ancient doraains." This, he said, was for the purpose of reraoving all ground for present or future misinterpretations or doubts concerning the pretension set forth by the successor of the late king "in taking the title of King of Italy to sanction the spolia tion already consummated." To ah who have read of the fatherly and merciful spirit manifested by the venerable Pontiff not only when the tidings of the mortal illness of the king reached the Vati can, but when all were startled by the announcement of his death,* the thought cannot occur that, by so protesting in the face of all the Powers of Christendora, the dying Vicar of Christ was animated by any feeling of personal resent ment. Such feelings were alien to the gentle, loving, and Christian spirit of the all forgiving Pius. The protest was the act of one who, having received in trust, on his election to the Papal Chair, the temporalities *See "Life of Pius IX.," eighteenth edition. New York, pp. 527-28. 295 ^ 29^' LIFE OP Leo xIII guaranteeing its sovereignty and thereby its independence, felt bound, as he was to appear before Chri.st Himself to render an account of that trust, to assert raore solemnly that he was suffering violence at the hands of the oppres sor, and that he persisted with his dying breath in asserting the iraprescriptable right of the Church. His coronation oath had bound him to transmit the patriraony of the Holy See intact to his predecessor. To protest was all that he now could do in the face of overpowering raight. No sooner had the ocean telegraph flashed the news of the death of Pius IX. all over Araerica than even the Protestant press began to ask the questions : " Will the Piedmontese government not take possession of the Vati can and St. Peter's?" "Will they, can they, allow the cardinals to assemble freely in conclave and elect a suc cessor to Pius IX. ? " " Is not this a golden opportunity for the kingdora of Italy to secure, even at the risk of a schism, a Pope of its own — one disposed to recognize and sanction accomplished facts — and thus put a stop to the ruinous conflict between the two powers in the Peninsula? " Indeed, for raonths before January 7, 1878 — the date of Pius IX. 's decease — such questions as these were seriously discussed by the public journals on both sides of the At lantic. Many Catholics were fearful lest some such steps raight be taken by the new raasters of Rome ; nor were there wanting in the Italian press and among Italian states men those who would enthusiastically applaud such steps and give effective aid toward their consummation. Ay, that would have bean the consuraraation of the cherished designs and deeply laid plans of Mazzini, of the anti-Christian Revolution of which he was the prophet and lawgiver. It would have filled with joy inexpressible the soul of Garibaldi and of the raen who had steeped them selves in blood and sacrilege to blot out the Catholic religion from the soil of Italy. Be it said, too, without any offence to the great mass of English and American Protestants who had clapped WOULD THE CARDINALS BE UNTRAMMELED 9 297 their hands with transport and sung their loud pagans of thanksgiving when the Porta Pia was breached and the Piedmontese entered Rome and hoisted the flag of Savoy on the Quirinal and Castle Sant' Angelo, their exultation would have been complete if, ere the remains of Pius IX. had been cold in death, that same cross of Savoy had floated from the topmost point of the Vatican and the dome of St. Peter's. Legge relates, in his work on the Pontificate of Pius IX., a fact which is eloquently suggestive. When, after this Pope's flight to Gaeta, a proclamation was issued by the Provisional Republican government in Rome calling a Constituent Assembl}-, the Pope, on January i, 1849, issued a counter-proclamation protesting solemnly against all acts tending to a usurpation of the teraporal power of the Holy See. This was both his right and his bounden duty. This proclaraation, Legge informs us, was torn down by the populace, carried in procession, and then buried with every circumstance of ignominy. Then a public meeting of all the rascality in Rorae was called, and the notorious Cicernacchio, the leader in all these deraonstra tions, moved a resolution to the effect that the Pope be then and there excoramunicated, the sentence to be sent to him with an address concluding thus : "When you. Sir Pope, left the city by one gate, the Bible entered into it by the opposite gate, and now there is no room for you ! '.' * We know— why remind American or English readers ®f the disgraceful fact ?— that it was the boast of some of the modern Biblical evangelists that the Bible again entered Rome in triumph with the Piedraontese army through the breach at the Porta Pia. So much the worse for the Bible as these raen regard it. But we are only speaking at present of the unaccora- plished purpose of the Radical Revolutionists, and of the unfulfilled but ardently expressed wish of those societies i7i league or in sympathy with Garibaldi. ?Legge, "Pius IX.,'' vol, ii. p. 139. I 298 LIFE OF LEO XIIL The Italian government, by the invisible control of an overruling Providence, either had no thought or no will to interfere with what was happening inside the Vatican, or with the actions of the Cardinal Camerlengo, on whom it now devolved to adrainister the Church and to dispose all things for the election of another Pope. His first deterraination, when Pius IX. had yielded up to the Redeeraer and Judge his long-chastened spirit- dying, as dies the hurablest Christian, consoled and purified by the sacraraents of his faith, confessing his sins with a heartfelt and raost touching siraplicity, reciting, with a fer vor and presence of raind that moved to tears all around hira, the act of contrition, of loving sorrow for all offences against the Divine Majesty, and then receiving the last ab solution — was to give no pretext to the Italian authorities to cross the threshold of the Vatican. The custora, when the Pope died in the Quirinal, was to have the corpse lie in state in the Pauline Chapel, where the people were free to corae and pray around the bier If the death took place in the Vatican, then the body lay in state in the Sistine Chapel. But the Sistine being with in the precincts of the palace — the only spot over which extends at present the very uncertain and shadowy sove reignty left to the Popes— if the reraains of Pius IX. were exposed there to the public veneration, the love which yet reraained so deep in the hearts of the great majority of the Roraan people, as distinguished from the revolutionary raultitudes that had flocked to the city after the Piedmon tese, would have brought such throngs to the Sistine and through the Vatican as raight have justified the municipal authorities and the governraent in interfering. Cardinal Pecci wisely resolved to afford no such pretext for violating even the serablance of sovereignty left to the Holy See. He ordered the reraains to be laid out in state in St. Peter's, taking also there every means to preserve order and to cut off every pretext for municipal intrusion. The first official act of the Sacred College, assembled in onclave on Tuesday, February 19, 1878, was to confirm by FIRST OFFICIAL ACT OF THE SACRED COLLEGE. 299 their united protest that issued by Pius IX. on January 17. The cardinals in conclave are the depositary of the Papal sovereignty; the exercise of their right of suffrage in electing the Pope is only the use of that sovereign right. They therefore declared, through the Secretary of State, to all the Great Powers: "That they thereby renewed all the protests and reser vations made by the deceased Sovereign Pontiff, whether against the occupation of the States of the Church or against the laws and decrees enacted to the detriment of the same Church and of the Apostolic See " ; all unani mously declaring themselves " deterrained to follow the course marked out by the deceased Pontiff, whatever trials may happen to befall thera through the force of events." This document was signed by the deans of the three orders in the Sacred College — cardinal-bishops, cardinal- priests, and cardinal-deacons. Every step, every incident in the proceedings of these ' days, so full of anxious expectancy and half-dread, raarked the diplomatic skill, the prudent tact, and the conscien tious sense of right and duty characteristic of the man, Joachim Pecci, who stood in the foremost place at the head of his brethren. It is customary to have funeral services perforraed in every church and chapel in Rome for the repose of the soul of a deceased Pope during nine days before his burial. It is a touching and instructive custora, rerainding Chris tians of every degree that the higher one's office on earth the greater is the responsibility, the raore searching and awful the judgraent to be undergone before Hira "who searcheth the hearts and the loins," and the more press ing is, therefore, the need of pleading for the departed spirit. The Vatican Palace and the space adjoining the Sistine Chapel are much less convenient for the purposes of a con clave than the corresponding locality in the Quirinal where Pius IX. had been elected. Cardinal Pecci resolved that no delay that could possibly be avoided should take place 300 LIFE OF LEO XIII. by any fault of his, so that all should be in readiness for the conclave at the end of the nine days' devotions. He summoned the architects Vespignani and Marti- nucci, and bade them get a sufficient body of workmen, with the requisite materials, and set to work at once to prepare lodgings for all the members of the Sacred College, with their attendants and the officers designated by law. On February lo five hundred workmen at least were busy at their appointed task. Lodgings, furniture, all things needful even for a protracted election, were got in readiness. For, once the conclave is declared in session, all communi cation with the outside world ceases, and the door of the strictly guarded enclosure only opens to adrait some tardy raember of the Sacred College. The Pontifical laws regulating everything that regards this, the highest body of electors in the Church, leave no room for doubt or indecision. * It is expressly enjoined that the cardinals present in Rome shall wait for ten days after the death of a Pope, and that then they shall enter into conclave and proceed to the election of a succes sor without waiting for the arrival of their absent col leagues. On Sunday, February 17, the Novena, or nine days' de votions, were concluded in the Sistine Chapel by a solemn Pontifical Mass for the Dead, celebrated in presence of all the cardinals. On Monday, the i8th, the Solemn Mass of the Holy Ghost was sung in the Pauline Chapel in the fore noon, and in the afternoon all the ceremonies for the be ginning of the conclave were performed- At the election of the four last Popes, the conclave being held in the Quirinal, Rorae being then governed by the Pontifical authorities, and the Sacred College being free to carry out, in public and in private, every part of the cere monial prescribed, the custora was, on the day for entering into conclave, to proceed in state in the forenoon to St. Peter's, where the Mass of the Holy Ghost was sung by * See the Author's article, " Conclave," in ihe " American Cyclopaedia. OPENING OF TIIE COXCI.IVF. o<^ ' the cardinal dean of the Sacred College, and a sermon was delivered reminding the electors of their tlut}- to cmisidcr the divine glory and the good of the universal Church as their guiding motive in what the}- were about to under take. They then went in state to the Quirinal. It was an im- preseive scene. The cardinals had laid aside the usual scar let robes for purple, the sign of raourning. The necessary attendants of the electors opened the march ; after thera came the Papal choir singing the hyran Vent, Creator Spiri- iiis. A master of cereraonies, bearing aloft the Papal cross, preceded the merabers of the Sacred College, who advanced in the order of their dignity and seniority. They were fol lowed by the prelates and officials taking part in the con clave. The governor of Rome walked by the side of the car dinal dean, the people hning the streets and joining in the sacred chants invoking the divine light on the Papal elec tors. Of course, on that Monday morning, February i8, 1878, there was no procession to St. Peter's, no solemn High Mass sung beneath its sublime dome to call down the di vine blessing on the raen about to give a Pope to the Church, and no return in state to the Quirinal. The Qui rinal was in the hands of the deadliest foes of the Papacy. The solemn Mass celebrated to call down the aid of the Holy Spirit was sung within the Vatican, in the Pauline Chapel. Cardinal Amat, the dean of the Sacred College, was borne in a litter up the grand staircase of the palace, and from the Pauline Chapel to his sick-bed within the conclave enclosure, and his sick-bed he left not till borne back again to his residence, the election bver. Another cardinal, Morichini, was but little better; he had to be supported by two assistants as he slowly and painfully mounted the palace stairs. And Cardinal Catterini, the head of the Order of Deacons, was only kept up and en abled to take part in the proceedings by his indomitable will. 302 LIPE OF LEO XIII. They were no ordinary body of men, these sixty-one cardinals who met that morning in the Pauline Chapel. Three only of the entire body of electors were missing — Cardinal Broussais de Saint-Marc, who was lying at death's door ; Cardinal Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin, detained at first by illness, and who hastened to Rorae only to find the Pope elected ; and the sole Araerican cardinal, McClos- key. Archbishop of New York, who was on his way, but only carae to do homage to the successor of Pius IX.* In the altered circumstances of the political world, and the voluntary or enforced indifference of the so-called Ca tholic Powers to the cruel position of the Holy See, it was at least fortunate that the Sacred College was no longer to be subjected to the oppression exercised on its members in the last century and the preceding ages. The electors were thus left free to choose the man whom they knew to be in every way the most worthy and the best fitted to rule the Church. This freedom of elec tion — So often tampered with by the house of Bourbon, as well as by all the other royal dynasties whom mediaeval feudalism had made the arbiters of Christendom — was one of the precious liberties which Providence had restored to the Church as the reward for the bitter trials of more than a century. Who knows but that the perfect independence of the Holy See is only to be the outcome of the present social and political convulsions, which, in upsetting what remains of that sarae feudalism, will sweep away more than one throne, enfranchise the millions of Italians to * In the conclave which elected Leo XIII. were the following cardinals; Amat, Di Pietro, Sacconi, Guidi, Bilio, Morichini, Schwarzenberg, Pecci, Asquini, Carafa di Tiaetto, Donnet, Antonucci, Panebianco, De Luca, Pitra, De Bonnechose, Von Hohenlohe, Bonaparte, Ferrieri, Berardi, Moreno, Monaco la Valletta, Moraes Cardoso, Rtgnier, Chigi, Franchi, Guibert, (.)reglia di Santo Stefano, Simor, Martinelli, Antici Mattel, Giannelli, Le- dochowski, Manning, Dechamps, Simeoni, Bartolini, D'Avanzo, Franzelin, Benavides y Navarrete, Apuzzo, Garcia Gil, Howard, Para y Rico, Cave- rot, Di Canossa, Serafini, Miha'ovitz, Kutschker, Parocchi, Moretti, Ca- terini, Meitel, Consolini, Borromeo, Randi, Pacca, Nina, Sbarretti, Fal- loux du Coudray, Pellegrini. PRELIMINARY CERE.MOXIAL. 303 whom the Revolution just accoraplished has refused the right of honest suffrage, and enable the majority of a peo ple not yet dechristianized to make the Vicar of Christ freer than in the days of the first or the tenth Leo ? So thought in February, 1878, and so think to-day some of the far-seeing men who entered the conclave which gave to the world Leo XIII. The sixty-one Princes of the Church who from the Pauline Chapel, the Mass of the Holy Ghost ended, went in solemn procession through the magnificent Sala Regia (the royal hall of the Vatican) to the Sistine, there to per form the first ceremonies of the conclave, were men whora no outside influence turned aside from the one grand pur pose of their coming together. Nor was the pontifical tiara, in the present condition of things, a crown that could tempt even the worldly-minded, if such there were araong them. The Papal cross was borne aloft before thera, to tell them now, as never before during many an age, that he whom they would place in the chair of Peter must, like Peter, share his Master's crucifixion. The voices of the Pa pal choir made the storied walls and ceiling of the hall re sound with the majestic strains of the Veni Creator. Every one joined heartily in the sublime words of the prayerful hymn. No open-air pageant could equal the earnestness of spirit pervading the place and the assemblage. All genuflect to the hidden Presence on the altar as they en ter the precincts of the Sistine. The senior cardinal bish op, at the foot of the altar, chants the prayer Deus, qui corda fidelimn.* There is silence, and all kneel for a few noments. When all are seated the cardinal sub-dean reads iloud the pontifical laws regulating conclaves, and every one of the electors takes the oath binding hira to observe che same. Then coraes the turn of the governor of the conclave, the prince-raarshal, the secretary, and all the other officials to be sworn to fidelity and secrecy. "O God ! who hast taught the hearts of the faithful by the illuminat ing grace of the Holy Spirit, grant us in the same Spirit to relish what is right, and thus always to enjoy the sweetness of His consolation." 304 LIFE OF LEO XIII. This ends the ceremonial of the first part of the day. The afternoon is devoted by the cardinals to the transac tion of such business as requires immediate despatch, to the reception of such personages as is customary on such occasions, the members of the diplomatic body accredited to the Holy See, the Roman nobility, and foreigners of dis tinction. With the Ave Maria closes the Roman business day. When it has ceased tolling a bell sounds in the corridors around the Sistine Chapel, and the rnaster of ceremonies is heard giving in a loud voice the signal for all strangers to depart : Exeant omnes ! Many a hear^ wish had been expressed within these historic walls, as the hours of the afternoon passed slowly away, that such or such a cardinal raight fill the place left erapty by hira whose body had been yesterday laid to teraporary repose yonder in St. Peter's. That place was now to be filled, not by the ambitious, but by the self-sacrificing. God was directing it all. Prince Chigi, Hereditary Marshal of the Holy Roman Church and Guardian of the Conclave, charged, in virtue of his office, with seeing that all outward precautions for the perfect enclosure of the conclave should be taken, went at the appointed hour from the apartments of the maestro di camera to fulfil his duty. It was a stately pro cession in itself : the prince in his full uniform, attended by his four captains or aids, an escort of the Noble and Swiss Guards, and a body of servants in state liveries bearing torches, advance through the lofty corridors to the great door giving entrance to the conclave. On the threshold of this entrance, and waiting for his arrival, was Cardinal Pecci, the Camerlengo, with the three cardinals, heads of orders. After the usual salutations the great door is closed, the Cardinal Camerlengo locks it on the inside, the prince-raarshal locks it on the outside and places the keys in a crirason velvet bag, which he thenceforth safely keeps in his own custody. This done, Monsignor Ricci-Parracciani, Governor of the uitir k/nnn o*\r- i m i N . CHAMBERLAIN. PAGE OH CHAIR BEARER PONTIFICIAL GENDARME NOBLE GUARD SWISS GUARD SWISS GUARDS. PALACE GUARD Officers and attendants ofthe Pontificial Court. PRECAUTIONS FOR ISOLATION AND SECRECY. 305 Conclave, walks round the enclosure, examining scrupu lously every part, and assuring himself, in compliance with his oath of office, that there is no possibility of commu nication with the outside world. An imperfect enclosure would entail the nullity of any choice raade by the elec tors, even though every other formality had been strictly observed. The Cardinal Cameriengo this time has taken raeasures never before practised. A kitchen was by his orders in stalled within the enclosure, with a sufficient number of cooks and other servants. Thus every article of food was prepared within what was properly the conclave, and no occasion or pretext was left for transgressing the sacred rules of isolation and secrecy rendered necessary by the^ long experience of ages. On both sides of the chapel, down along those walls on which true Christian art has left its masterpieces, sixty-four lofty screens have been erected, and in front of these are seats for the cardinals, every seat being numbered. There is before each seat a small square table with writing ma terials. Each seat is canopied, the canopy being the em blem of sovereignty, and all these Papal electors are now co-equa' sharers in that sovereignty which they will place, undivided, on the head of the Pope of their choice. Four of these seats, with the overhanging canopies, the tables, and the screens behind, are draped in green cloth ; the remaining sixty are draped in purple. What is the reason of this distinction ? The green is the color distinctive of the cardinals cre ated by Gregory XVL, the only four surviving of all those who in June, 1846, had sat araong the electors of Pius IX. The other sixty cardinals are of the creation of the long-lived Pius. Think you,' when, but a few hours ago, these few cardinals who had voted in the conclave of 1846 found themselves, at so long" an interval, called again to give to another the cross which Pius had borne, that their souls were not oppressed with the holy sadness wont to come, in the Catacombs, on the men called to elect the 3o6 LIFE oP LEO XIIL successors of the first Cleraent, the first Sixtus, and the first Pius, slain by the rage of the persecutor ? There is no electoral assembly known to the civilized world and to all history like these conclaves in which are chosen the men who are, like Siraon Peter, charged to feed Christ's entire flock, and destined, like Peter, to lay down their lives for the sheep. Now let us see how these electors go about their work. The raorning of Tuesday, February 19, has dawned on Rorae — a balray raorning, rising cloudless and golden-tinted beyond the Quirinal and the Esquiline, and flooding the lofty raasses of the Vatican and the dorae of St. Peter's with its first bearas. Few there are, if any, within the Vatican and the conclave who have not been beforehand with the dawn. And to-day there is more need than usual in their being early before the mercy-seat. And ere yet the early morning hours have passed, the voice of the mas ter of ceremonies, who is here the organ of the Church, is heard, as he passes along the corridors where the electors are lodged, pronouncing the sacramental formula, In capel- lam, domini — " To the chapel, my lords ! " And to the chapel, with the docility of school boys obeying a summons to morning prayer, the venerable train of purple-robed pre lates go at once. There they take the seats allotted to them, the Caraerlengo, Cardinal Pecci, taking that marked " number nine " on the Gospel side, and not far from the altar. The sub-dean celebrates a Low Mass, after which all take their seats. Now begins the real work of election. Three cardinals are chosen by vote as scrutineers : their business is to examine every schedula, billet or vote, and to note and announce the result. To each elector is given a schedula, or voting-paper, prepared after a given form. In the centre he writes the name of the person for whom he votes. At the top of the sheet he writes out the first part of the form : " I, N. Cardinal N., elect for Sovereign Pontiff ray Most Reverend Lord Cardinal ." The part containing the narae of the elector is folded MANNER OP BALLOTING. 307 and sealed, leaving visible in the middle space only the name of the candidate he votes for. At the lower end of the sheet he then writes a text of Scripture of his own choice, which is also sealed up, like his name at the top, and serves, in case of doubt, to verify his vote and signature. These papers have been carefully distributed, one to each of the electors, by the secretai}- of the conclave ; and each cardinal having dul}- filled the sheet and sealed it, all is ready for the balloting. On the altar stands a large chalice with its paten, made and consecrated for this special purpose. The car dinals in due order advance one b}- one in succession to the altar-steps. The elector, kneeling, pronounces in a loud and distinct voice the soleran words : " I call Christ our Lord, who will judge rae, to witness that I elect the person who before God I think should be elected, and which I shall make good in the accessus." Then, ascend ing the platform of the altar, he lays the folded schedula on the paten, and from this drops it into the chalice. While cardinal after cardinal is thus giving his vote in the chapel, the vote of Cardinal Amat has been taken in his cell, according to the strict formalities enjoined by the pontifical decrees. All the bulletins having been thus deposited in the chalice, the three scrutineers ascend to the altar. One of them takes the chalice, covers it with the paten, and shakes it well. A second then takes thera out and counts thera, one by one.^into another chalice. There are exactly sixty- one ; had there been one raore or less the schedula raust all have been burned and the balloting must have been begun again. The scrutineers now take the second chalice with its contents, and carry it to a large, square table draped in pur ple, and so placed that the scrutineers seated at it are plainly in view of all the electors. The senior scrutineer draws from the chalice the finst folded paper his hand touches, reads the name written in the open middle space. 3o8 LIFE OF LEO XIIL then hands it to the scrutineer next in seniority, who also reads the name aloud and takes note of it. The third does the same — each name being thus thrice proclaimed aloud. Meanwhile each of the other electors, seated at his own table, has a printed list of all the cardinals before him, and makes a mark opposite to the name thus read out. Twenty-three times the narae of Cardinal Joachim Pecci is thus announced. No other raember of the conclave re ceives anything approaching this number of votes. As the narae of the Caraerlengo thus com_es up with ominous fre quency, he is seen to be greatly disturbed. His pale, intel lectual, ascetic countenance is overcast by an expression of mingled disraay and grief. Still the number twenty-three is not that of half the electors present, and an absolute two-thirds majority is necessary to an election. Thus the first morning session of the conclave passed without any result. The balloting papers are therefore, according to rule, burned, and the blue smoke issuing from the slender stove-pipe thrust through a window in the chapel tells the expectant crowd on the square of St. Peter's that no Pope as yet has been chosen. Joachim Pecci with a heavy, foreboding heart retires to his cell, praying fervently that the burden of the Pon tificate may not be laid on his aged shoulders. The hour for the afternoon session has come, and the voice of the master of ceremonies falls on the ears of the Cardinal Camerlengo with a startling sound : " To the chapel, ray lords ! " The purple-robed procession of venerable men glides in silence into the Sistine ; the silence is deeper still as all kneel before the raercy-seat and the sub-dean of the Sacred College recites aloud the first verse of the Veni, Creator Spiritus, his brother-cardinals taking up the alternate stan zas. This invocation to the Spirit of truth and light be ing ended, they prepare for the second ballot, the cererpo- nial being quite the sarae as in the morning. During the recess each elector has been reflecting the eminent qualities of the man for whom the twe: r on njty- THE SHADOW OP THE CROSS. 309 three votes were cast in the forenoon. Cardinal Pecci has been lifting up his soul to the Searcher of hearts, and be seeching Him to avert from himself the dread honors which threaten him. What have his brethren been resolving raeanwhile ? Let us see. Cardinal Pecci's turn to vote coraes early, his seat being near the altar and bearing the number nine. At length the last bulletin has fallen into the chalice on the altar, and the scrutineers have begun to announce and count out the names of those voted for. Again Cardinal Joachim Pecci's name is repeated with even raore significant fre quency than in the morning. He soon has to mark twenty- three opposite to his own name on the printed list before him ; again and again his name occurs till the number reaches thirty^one-half of the electors present ; and on, on the number swells till it is increased to thirty-eight ! But when the number thirty has been reached and passed, the trouble, the emotion, the terror of the humble- minded Camerlengo have become uncontrollable. Cardinal Donnet, Archbishop of Bordeaux, whose seat was next to Cardinal Pecci's, describes what he then beheld in a dis course from his cathedral pulpit on his return horae from the conclave : " I remarked that. Cardinal Pecci hearing his own name mentioned so often, and that everything pointed to him as the successor of Pius IX., great tears rolled down his cheeks, and his hand shook so violently that the pen it held feU to the ground. I picked it up and gave it to him, saying : ' Courage ! There is no question here of you ; it is the Church and the future of the world that are in ques tion.' He made no reply, only lifting his eyes to heaven to implore the divine assistance."* Thirty-eight votes, however, did not constitute the two- thirds majority demanded by the canons. So again the voting-papers were all burned, and again the anxious crowd * Translated from the "Cenni Storici." 3IO LIFE OF LEO XIII. of spectators outside in the piazza dispersed, their curiosity unsatisfied. It was now raost probable that the raajority in favor of the Cardinal Camerlengo would, in the session of Wednes day morning, the 20th of February, be so increased as to secure his election. If his eraotion in the chapel was such, in spite of his long habits of self-command, that he could not conceal it from the eyes of his colleagues, one may guess that in the privacy of his cell he gave free vent to his tears and pleaded with his whole soul to have the bit ter cup removed from him. Another French cardinal, De Bonnechose, Archbishop of Rouen, gives us a graphic and authentic account of the Caraerlengo's appearance and behavior on the morrow. " Cardinal Pecci," he says, " to whom on the afternoon of the first day a majority of the votes were given, looked, on Wednesday morning, pale and frightened. Just before the voting began he went to one of the most revered mem bers of the Sacred College. ' I cannot control myself,' he said ; ' I raust address the Sacred College. I fear that they are about to commit a sad mistake. People think I am a learned man ; they credit me with possessing wisdom ; but I am neither learned nor wise. They suppose I have the necessary qualities for a Pope. I have nothing of the kind. This is what I want to say to the cardinals.' For tunately the other said to him : ' As to your learning, we, not you, can best judge of that. As to your qualifications for the Pontifical office, God knows what they are ; leave it all to Him.' Cardinal Pecci obeyed him."* The third ballot began at the appointed hour. The Cardinal Caraerlengo's distress raust indeed have touched his brethren deeply. It was, in their eyes, only a further evidence of his worthiness. He was, they thought, the man needed to guide the bark of Peter amid the tempest then raging — a tempest to which no human foresight could fix a terra. Acknowledged superiority of learning, with * Translated from the " Cenni Storici." "BY THE NAME OF LEO XIII.' 31 I pre-eminent virtue, and experienced skill in managing dip lomatic intercourse when international law and intcrnti- tional relations were as unsettled, as changing, as compli cated as the direction and currents of winds and waves in the centre of a cyclone — such were the high and rare quali ties these men, assembled to elect a Pope on Wednesday morning, the 20th of February, 1878, believed Joachim Pecci to be possessed of. So, as the balloting proceeded, and he sat prostrated at first, then calmer, resigned, and prayerful, his narae was announced with the sarae pro phetic frequency till the preceding nuraber, thirty-eight, was passed, and forty-four votes were recorded in his favor. It was more than a two-thirds raajority, and left no room for further scrutiny. Will Cardinal Pecci accept ? He sits mute, pale, with closed eyes, as if his spirit were far away from the place and scene. The master of ceremonies, accorapanied by the sub- dean, the senior cardinal priest and cardinal deacon, ap proach the seat Number Nine. -' Do you accept the elec tion canonically raade of you as Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church ? " asks the sub-dean araid a stillness so painful that one might alraost hear one's heart beat. Car dinal Pecci rises ; his whole frarae shakes with uncontrol lable emotion. With a quivering voice, but steadily and distinctly, he affirms his own unworthiness. But seeing them all of one mind and deterrained in this matter, he bows to the divine will. The sub-dean kneels thereupon before hira ; the raas ter of ceremonies claps his hands, and at this signal all the cardinals rise and remain standing in horaage to the new Sovereign. Instantly all the canopies above the seats are lowered save that above the seat of the Pope-elect. The sub-dean then asks : " By what narae do you wish to be called?" " By the narae of Leo XIIL," is the prorapt answer. And so Pope Leo XIII. stands forth in history to begin a new era for the Church, for Catholicity, for civilization. Let us conclude our narrative, 3 I 2 LIFE OP LEO XIII. The prothonotary-apostolic forthwith raakes a minute of these final proceedings, bearing his own signature and those of the prince-raarshal, the raaster of ceremonies, the secretary, and assistant secretaries. While these docu ments are drawn up the enclosures are removed, the great door is unlocked, and proclaraation is raade that the con clave is ended. The Pope-elect allows hiraself to be conducted behind the altar between the two senior cardinal deacons. There he is divested of his cardinalitial robes and clad in the tra ditional white vesture worn by his predecessors — cassock, cincture, rochet, hood, white berretta (or scull-cap), and stole ; the scarlet stockings are replaced by white. The embroidered shoes alone are scarlet, with a golden cross. Meanwhile they have placed upon the platform of the altar the portable Papal throne — sedia gestatoria — and all is in readiness for the first solemn ceremony of doing hom age to the newly-elected Vicar of Christ. This is called " adoration," from the Latin word adorare, the ceremony by which the ancient Romans testified their reverence to any superior being or person, by turning their face toward the object of their homage and carrying the right hand to the lips. Here the act of reverence shown is to the per son representing on earth the Redeemer and Guide of man kind, and, indirectly, to Christ Himself. Leo XIIL, attired in the insignia of his dignity, now advances from behind the altar and takes his place on the throne. The sub-dean, in the absence of Cardinal Amat, is the first to approach the throne. He takes from the Pope's hand the sapphire cardinalitial ring and puts on his finger the Ring of the Fisherman ; then he bends low and kisses the feet of His Vicar on earth who in the Last Sup per washed and kissed the feet of His apostles ; he then kisses the Pope's hand, while Leo in his turn gives hira on both cheeks the kiss of peace. So do all the cardinals in succession, and then the officers of the conclave. This first horaage, or " adoration," over, the senior car dinal deacon, Catterini, asks the Pope's perraission to an- JO Y IN RO.ME. 3 I 3 nounce the election to the outside world. Ill and faint, Catterini is nevertheless too rauch overjoyed at the result of the election to allow any one else to fulfil the duty of first proclaiming it. There is a great crowd in the square beneath. They have been long waiting ; the old ones among them knew at what hour very nearly the raorning ballot must have ended. The blue sraoke had not raade its appearance at the tirae expected : the election was then an accomplished fact, and the fever of expectancy grew and grew. At length on the interior gallery of the Vatican, look ing down into the vast nave of St. Peter's Church, the Pa pal cross appeared, with the acolytes, raaster of cereraonies, mace-bearers, etc., followed by Cardinal Catterini, who, turning his face toward the piazza, where the crowd were waiting, pronounced these words : " I announce to you tidings of great joy. We have a Pope, the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Joachim Pecci, Cardinal Priest of the title of St. Chrysogonus, who hath given himself for name Leo XIII." At this the bells of St. Peter's rang forth a merry peal, taken up by all the churches of Rome, the tidings of the election with the name of the new Pope spreading with lightning-like rapidity through Rorae, while the electric telegraph bore thera as rapidly to every quarter of the globe. No cannon thundered frora the Castle Sant' Angelo — there the usurping flag of Savoy floated ; and no universal illumination in the evening proclairaed the joy of the citi zens. The majority of the Roman nobility did, however, illuminate their palaces, and very raany of the citizens did the same, even though by so doing they were raarking themselves out to the violence of the triumphant anti clerical mob which soraetimes terrorized over the govern ment itself. In the New World the name of Leo XIII. was hailed by Catholics with delight, with satisfaction by all. The fears of Piedmontese interference were now found to be ground- 314 LIFE OF LEO XIII. less. And then there was the old prophecy relating to Lumen in Ccelo, to which even scholars, who did not believe in its authenticity, still attached, with the people, a half- belief that was not all superstition. And, sure enough, the ancient shield of the Pecci fami ly displays in the upper part, on an azure ground, a star shedding a stream of light on all beneath. Then there are a tall cypress, the emblem of strength and tenacity, and two flowering lilies, the symbol of sanctity and learning. It remains to see how Leo XIIL will justify this pro phetic trust. And in Perugia — how was the news of Cardinal Pecci's election received there? On that very raorning of February 20, as on the 19th, there had been a soleran function held in the cathedral: a soleran High Mass pro eligendo Suinmo Pontifice was celebrated, in accordance with the prescriptions of the Church, to call down the light of the Holy Spirit on the electors assembled in conclave at Rome. This is the custora in all parts of the Catholic world on such occa sions. While the solemn rite was carried out in Perugia, he who had passed so many years of his life in the pic turesque old raediseval city was raised by the suffrages of his peers to the Suprerae Pastorship. Not long after noon the whole city was startled by an official telegram from Rome announcing the elevation of their Bishop to the chair of Peter. It was a sudden and a raost joyous surprise. Instant ly Monsignor Laurenzi issued a circular announcing the change to the clergy and people of Perugia. " We perfectly understand," the auxiliary bishop said, " with what joy this providential event raust fill our clergy, so long the object of his wise and loving care, and all our people, who on so raany occasions and in so many ways have had opportunities to admire his rare gifts of soul, his pastoral virtues, and the exalted wisdora of his administra tion, whether as our civil Governor long ago, or as the Bishop of this illustrious diocese, which he Ipved as his IlOiV THE NEWS W.IS RECEIVED IN TERUGI.l. 3 I 5 own native land, as a choice vineyard confided to his hus bandry." The local Catholic organ spoke of the c\'ent as follows : " Our city heard with incredible jo}- of the exaltation oi our revered Bishop to the see of St. Peter. \Vc havc wit nessed unusual emotion on this occasion — tears of joy in the eyes of many; persons of every rank calling on Mon signor Laurenzi to offer their congratulations ; all the bells sending forth a glad peal, and houses illuminated. They are now forming a deputation of distinguished ecclesiastics and laymen charged to go to Rome to offer the Holy Father the felicitations and best wishes of the entire city." * On the following Sunday, February 24, in the cathedral of Perugia and all the city and country churches through out the diocese, there was a solemn service of thanksgiving, with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. There was need to thank God for such a Pope ; but there was still greater need to beseech God to guide him and his flock through the coming storm and darkness. *MS. CHAPTER XX. LEO XIII. — LUMEN IN CCELO. " Amen, amen I say to thee : When thou wast vounger thou didst gird thyself and didst walk where thou wouldst. But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst not." — St. Joh.n xxi. i8. mHERE were not wanting in the public press, at the very raoraent when the civilized world was startled by the sudden election of Leo XIIL, voices calling on the four Powers once recognized as Catholic — Austria, France, Spain, and Portugal — to veto the election of the new Pope; that is, not to recognize him officially.* But the ambassa dors of these Powers near the Holy See were among the first, on the day after the election, to offer in the name of their respective sovereigns heartfelt homage and congratu lation to the new Pontiff. From every portion of the civil ized world, from every shore connected with Rome by the electric telegraph, came to the Vatican, day by day and hourly, raessages of felicitation, reverence, love, and thanks giving. The two hundred raillions of Catholics who, spread all over the globe, look to the Pope as the Vicar of Christ, felt instinctively that Leo XIII. had been freely, lawfully chosen by the Sacred College, and their hearts went out to greet hira at the beginning of a reign which they knew raust be one of bitter trial and struggle. Reign I What a word to use in speaking of the con ditions under which the long Pontificate of Pius IX. ended and that of his successor began ! Pius, in June, 1846, was hailed by all Rome and by all Italy with such an outburst of enthusiasm as had never been witnessed before. What a scene it was when he, over whose head all thoughtful minds read in characters of light * See Appendix F. 316 LEO XIII.'S FIRST PONTIFICAL BENEDICTION. 317 inextinguishable Crux de Cruce, gave his first solemn bless ing from the historic balcon}- above the principal door of St. Peter's ! What a delirious scene was that presented by the great square with its £;xultant crowds ! But far raore triumphant was the "progress" of Pius IX. when he was crowned and went in solemn procession through the streets of Rome to take formal possession of his cathedral, the church of St. John Lateran. Archbishop Pecci, just returned frora Belgium, and then in his thirty-sixth }'ear, beheld these splendid pageants and heard the hymns of jo}- which the raultitudes sang day and night to the praise of their new Pontiff. Thirty-two years well-nigh have passed, and the young Nuncio of 1846 is Pope in 1878. Win he dare to give his first Pontifical benediction " to the city and the world " — Urbi et Orbi — frora the balcony above the portico of St. Peter's ? On the afternoon of that memorable 20th of February, 1878, thousands of the simple folk of Rorae, who reasoned but little about pohtics, and reraerabered only the reign of the Popes as the time when the poor raan's bread and wine were cheap, when the laboring raan's industry was not taxed and his son was not taken away forcibly frora the field or the fireside, crowded the square of St. Peter's, hoping that Leo XIIL would bless them frora yonder balcony. Others, the more knowing ones, in great numbers too, filled the interior of St. Peter's, and waited patiently in the immense nave, their eyes fixed on the interior balcony communicating with the Vatican palace. Many a heartfelt prayer was said at the Shrine of the Apostles, where ever more "flame the lamps of gold," or in front of the beautiful Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, for the new Pope and for the Church, both beset by such dangers. The afternoon wore away, and it was a little after half-past four when, all of a sudden, the window closing the interior balcony above ;he great nave was opened. An electric thrill passes like lightning through the expectant crowd, and, with a great murmur of joy, all instantly kneeh 3 1 8 LIFE OP LEO XIIL Then is seen advancing to the railing of the balcony a tall, white figure, the hair as white as the robes he wears, and the countenance almost as white as the hair. Behind him and on each side stand cardinals and prelates. A great silence has fallen on the crowd beneath, while, with a voice clear and distinct like that of a trurapet, Leo XIII. utters the sacramental words of the Apostolic Benediction — the first blessing of a parent to his family, of the Supreme Pastor to the wide flock the eyes of his love behold kneel ing there before hira. His last words are still echoing through the vast spaces of the basilica, and the hand of the Pontiff is still raised in benediction and prayer, when all that crowd, as if moved by one instinct, rise to their feet, and a mighty shout, "Long live Leo XIII. ! " rings along the nave of St. Peter's. It is repeated again and again. There speaks the heart of the entire Catholic world. It is the first time that this second " Prisoner of the Vatican " looks upon his people. He understands them, appreciates their devotion, and retires. And the coronation ? The Pope had appointed for the ceremony Sunday, March 3. It was thought — and even he, old and experienced as he was, fancied — ^that within the area of the great church of St. Peter's, and the great square which is in reality an integral part of the chief temple of Catholicity, a Sovereign Pontiff might, without let or hin drance, be allowed to perform the necessary and soleran function of his coronation and enthronization. But he did not know yet the brutal and overmastering force which ruled Rorae and its government. Great preparations had begun to be made in St. Peters for the ceremony of March 3. Scaffoldings were erected, and the usual magnificent draperies were begun to be hung along the nave, when of a sudden they were taken down again. No precautions would be taken by those in author ity to prevent interruptions, or to secure order either in the square outside St. Peter's or even in the church within. So on the day appointed, after solemn High Mass in the CORONA TION OF POPE LEO XIIL 3 i g Sistine Chapel, the ambassadors of the Catholic Powers at tending in the name of their governraents, the coronation ceremony is perforraed in the loggia or balcony overlooking the interior of St. Peter's, and from which Leo XIIL had given his first blessing to his people. There again he showed himself, bearing his tiara, his triple crown of sharp thorns, and blessed them. But no force, invisible or visible, could prevent them, and all Catholicity with them, from crowning that venerable head with a threefold diadem of love, of reverence, and of undying devotion. One significant incident had raeanwhile occurred in Spain, one which the Catholic world will never fail to re member with gratitude. The Spanish senate, in its sitting of February 26, spontaneously and unanimously adopt ed a resolution offering to Leo XIII. their respectful feli citations, moved, as they said, to this act of public hom age by their own religious feelings. The young king had already written his own hearty words of reverent duty and congratulation. And ere that king had closed his brief career, raarked toward its ending by such heroic devotion to his people, was he, as well as they, not blessed a thousandfold for this affectionate homage of the sovereign and his senate ? For 'Spain Leo XIII. truly proved to be what a German publi cist called him, "the Prince of Peace," saving her from the horrors of war. The consolation thus given by the kingdom and people of St. Ferdinand to the heart of the new Pontiff, and all the additional testiraonies of affection, loyalty, and devotion which every mail brought to the Vatican, were needed by Leo XIII. even at the first stage of his government. On retiring from the loggia where he was crowned, and with the blessings of his people echoing back his own solemn benediction, an affecting ceremony terminated, in the Sistine Chapel, the proceedings of that day. When the Pope had laid aside the pontifical vestments, he received, as IS customary on such occasions, the horaage of the Sacred College. Cardinal di Pietro, the sub-dean, in the name of 3 20 LIFE OP LEO Xlll. his colleagues renewed the oath and the promises of fealty made in conclave on the day of the election, and then in a brief address expressed their coraraon sentiments toward the new Sovereign. " Behold, we shall be thy mouth and thy flesh," he said, in the words of Scripture. The Pope answered in terras of deep humility, saying that the very rites they had just fulfilled impressed him raore and more with the sublimity of the station to which they had raised him, and made hira continually repeat with King David: " Who ara I, O Lord God, that Thou hast brought me unto this?" When night carae there was a spontaneous illumination. All classes of the true Romans, the old population of the city, as distinguished from the masses whom the govern raent had invited or encouraged to come to Rome from all parts of Italy, lit up their windows. The palaces of the nobles were especially conspicuous on this occasion. But the men who had resolved that the Papal coronation should not be perforraed with the usual solemnities in St. Peter's were on the lookout for this manifestation of Ca tholic feeling. They soon had well-organized bands in all the streets, provided with stones, and smashing every win dow in every house they could reach and that dared to show a single taper or lamp. The palaces along the Corso fared il! on that night. The police were there ; but the police took care to encourage the rioters by exhorting them "not to go too far." * It is sufficient to know that the Minister of the Interior was then the notorious Crispi. On the 4th of March, the very day after his coronation, Leo XIII. completed the work which Pius IX. had been prevented by death from finishing : he promulgated the bull Ex Supremo Apostolatus Apice, reconstituting the Ca tholic hierarchy in Scotland. This work of reconstruction seemed, as he expresses it in his exquisite Latin, "a happy omen with which to begin the exercise of the Supreme * English and Amei ican readers wil recall the classic recommendation ~>i the officer 10 his men "not to put the bailiff under the pump and not to toss him on a blanket." THE FIRST ACTS OF LEO XIII. ^2 1 Pastorate, which we have taken on ourself with fear and trembling amid the calamities of the present times." It is with extreme satisfaction that, remembering the history of the ancient see of St. Andrew's, Leo XIII. " recalls it frora the tomb and bestows on it metropolitan rank, with the title of the See of Edinburgh." In his first consistorial allocu tion, on the 28th of the same raonth, the Pope again al ludes to the restoration of the Scottish hierarchy. " We trust," he says, " that the work thus brought to an end by the Holy See shall be productive of abundant fruit, and that, through the intercession of the patron saints of Scot land, the mountains in that country shall put on peace for the people, and the hills righteousness." Did the watchful eyes of the Coraraon Father not look beyond the shores of Scotland and the isles blessed by Columbkille long ago to that kindred land frora which, in Europe's darkest days, light, righteousness, and the peace of the Gospel had corae for both Scotland and England, for the adjoining Continent, for the raountains above St. Gall and Lake Constance, for the Ligurian hills where Bobbio arose around the raonastery of St. Columbanus ? Can he, Leo XIIL, will he bring back peace with justice to the Green Isle so unspeakably dear to both Colurabkille and Columbanus? We shall see. On the nth of that sarae raonth, araid all the anxieties and occupations which pressed upon hira, Leo XIII. found time to reply, with raore even ,than his wonted warrath, to a society founded in Paris for the protection and encourage ment of young artisans. It was the creation of a man well known to the author, one of those siraply heroic Christians who find it quite natural to devote themselves in life to the most arduous self-denial and self-sacrifice for the good of others, and who face iraprisonraent and death in the per formance of duty with the calra intrepidity of souls that never knew either guilt or fear. This was Father Olivaint, one of the victims or " hostages" of the Paris Commune. He and his brethren had done wonders to save the working men and women of the French capital from the 32 2 LIPE OF LEO Xlll. temptations of poverty, as well as from ignorance, vice, and the meshes of the socialistic organizations. When Oli vaint fell, and his brethren were expelled in 1880 from their own houses, they either reraained in obscurity and isola tion near the scene of their labors, so as to continue their noble work, or other noble raen took it up after them. It was work such as Leo XIII. sympathized with from the bottom of his soul; for he had been careful in Perugia, and indeed wherever he had labored, to watch tenderly over the interests, material as well as spiritual, of the chil dren of toil. And this most fatherly solicitude for the wel fare of the laboring classes all over the world has inspired some of his most magnificent encyclical letters, as we shall soon see. A month later the Pope wrote another beautiful letter to Prince Eugene de Caraman-Chima}^, who, with many of his brother-noblemen, were devoting themselves in Belgium to found and promote societies in aid of workingmen. In France there was no less activity in this direction on the part of distinguished laymen, and Leo XIII. seized upon every occasion to praise and bless their exertions. How needed were the efforts of the noble sons and the praise of the parent the world will soon see. In truth, as we shall have occasion to observe in a future chapter, his great raind had long before clearly per ceived the utility and necessity of reviving in our age and in every civilized land associations of workingmen and tradesmen after the model o^ the free labor guilds of the eariy and later Christian ages, of those of Italy in particu lar, which had in very truth been the creators of that glori ous Italy which the Revolution is now fain to destroy.* * I'he Ri forma oi Rom.e, the organ of Signor Crispi and the revolu tionary party in Italy— the organ, in fact, of what we have designated in this volume as the Occult T^or.^— published on March 9, 18S6, an editorial ar ticle containing a plan for the complete destruction of the Church in Italy, and quite identical with that which is now so cifectually carried out in France; "To array the inferior clergy again't iheir superiors; to take away in every parish, village, and hamlet the influence and authority of the priest, and transfer Ihem to the atheistical schoolmaster and schoolmis- THE CONSISTORIAL ALLOCUTION OF MARCH zS. 323 We have just mentioned Leo XIII.'s first consistorial allocution,, pronounced on March 28. Many things con tributed to make this discourse remarkable apart frora its being the first solemn utterance of the new Pontiff. His former colleagues in the Sacred College and brothers in the pastoral office were well acquainted with the scholarly ac complishments of Cardinal Pecci. But these, great and un questioned as they were, could only be accounted a secon dary merit. They had raised him by their suffrages to the Chair of Peter in the raost evil da}-s known since those of Nero or Julian the Apostate, because of the raagnificent administrative abilities of which he had afforded so many and such splendid proofs as Bishop of Perugia from 1846 till 187S. They placed on him, well nigh a septuagenarian, the triple crown, because they firmly believed that he, in the necessarily few years he could rule the Church, would guide her bark safely through the fierce storm that raged around it, through the breakers which beset it on every side. In 1886 we see how gloriously their expectations and trust are realized. But we raay not anticipate. It is right that we should give ear to the beautiful words of wisdom addressed to the Sacred College and to the Christian world on that 28th of March : " Venerable Brothers : When your suffrages called us last month to take on ourselves the governraent of the universal Church, and to fill on earth the place of the Prince of pastors, Christ Jesus, we did indeed feel our soul moved by the deepest perplexity and perturbation. On the one hand we were filled with great fear by the sincere conviction of our own unworthiness, as well as by our utter inability to support so great a burden ; and this sense of infirmity was tress ; to take the complete control of ecclesiastical revenues of even- kind, so that no parish priest, no clerical functionary shall receive a penny save from the hand of the government." Such is the Italian Kulturkampf. The letter of Hermann Grimm in tlie Deutsche Randau on the " Destruc tion of Rome" points to another part of this campaign against Christianity, Christian art, and civilization, and they are putting it into execution with right hearty zeal ! 324 LIPE OF LEO XIII. all the more increased by the reraerabrance of how much the farae of our predecessor . . . shone the brighter and raore glorious through the whole earth. That great ruler of the Catholic fold had always contended for truth and justice with such invincible courage, and had labored so long and with such exeraplary fidelity in adrainistering the affairs of the Christian world, that he not only shed a lustre on this Apostolic See, but filled the whole Church with love and adrairation for his person, thereby perhaps ex celling all his predecessors in the high and constant testi raonies of public respect and veneration paid to him, as he surpassed them all by the length of his Pontificate. " On the other hand, we were filled with deep anxiety by the very sad state, in our days, of civil society almost everywhere, as well as of the Catholic Church itself, and especially of this Apostolic See, which, violently stripped of its temporal sovereignty, is reduced to a condition in which it can in no wise enjoy the full, free, and unimpeded use of its power. " Such, Venerable Brothers, were the reasons which raoved us to refuse the proffered honor of the Pontifi cate. But how could we resist the divine will, which was so raanifest in the unaniraity of your decision, and in that raost loving solicitude felt by you for the sole interest of the Catholic Church, urging you to elect, as soon as possi ble, a Sovereign Pontiff? " We, therefore, deeraed it our duty to take on ourselves the office of the Suprerae Apostleship, and to yield to the will of God, placing our whole trust in Hira, with the hope that He who had iraposed on us the high dignity would also give to our lowliness the strength to sustain it. " As this is the first tirae it is allowed us to address your Erainences frora this place, we desire first of all solemnly to assure you that in the fulfilraent of the service of our apostolate we shall have nothing so rauch at heart as to bestow all our care, with the help of God's grace, in sa credly guarding the deposit of the Catholic faith, in watching faithfully over the rights and interests of the THE PONTIFF'S COLLEAGUES A.VD COUNSELLORS. 325 Church and the Holy See, and In laboring for the salva tion of all; ever read}-, for all these purposes, to undergo any fatigue, to draw back from no discomfort. . . . " In the discharge of these duties of our ministry we trust that we shall never lack the benefit of your counsels and your wisdora — nay, we ardently beseech you never to allow them to fail us. And in saying this we wish you to understand that it is not a raere expression of official cour tesy, but a soleran declaration of our affectionate desire. For we are deeply irapressed by what the Holy Scripture relates of Moses — that, naraely, when recoiling from the weighty responsibility of governing a whole people, he, by God's own comraand, called to his aid seventy raen from among the ancients of Israel, in order to have them bear the burden with hira, and thus to raake them, by their help and counsel, lighten his cares in governing the people of Israel. This is the exaraple which we, who have been made the guide and ruler of the entire Christian people, in spite of our unworthiness, set before our eyes ; wherefore we cannot refrain frora seeking and finding in you the seventy men of all Israel in the Church of God, a help in our labors, a comfort in our cares. "We know, moreover, as the word of God declares, that there is safety where there are raany counsels ; we know that, as the Council of Trent adraonishes us, that the administration of the universal Church depends on the counsels given to the Roraan Pontiff by the College of Car dinals ; we learn, finally, frora St. Bernard, that the cardi nals are called the Pontiff's colleagues and counsellors. And therefore it is that we, who for nearly twenty-five years have enjoyed the honors of your order, have brought with us to this sovereign seat not only a heart full of affec tion and zeal for you, but the firra resolve to use chiefly those who were forraerly our associates in rank as our fellow-laborers and advisers in transacting ecclesiastical affairs. " And now a most happy and timely occurrence permits us to share with you the first sweet fruit of consolation 326 LIPE OF LEO XIII. which our Lord permits us to gather from the first great work accomplished for the glory of religion. Our saintly predecessor, Pius IX., m his great zeal for the Cathohc cause, had undertaken what such of you as belong to the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith had defi nitely decreed — to re-establish the episcopal hierarchy in the illustrious kingdora of Scotland, and thereby add a new lustre to that Church ; this we have been able to bring, with the divine aid, to a happy termination by the apos tolic letters (bull) which we had published on the 4th of this month. " It was indeed to us a subject of holy joy that in so doing we were fulfilling the ardent wishes of our dearly beloved, the clergy and faithful people of Scotland, of whose great devotion to the Catholic Church and the Chair of Peter we have raany striking proofs. We therefore hope sincerely that the work thus accoraplished by the Apostolic See shall be crowned with happy results, and that, through the intercession of the patron saints of Scotland, through out the length and breadth of the kingdora ' the moun tains shall put on peace for the people, and the hills righteousness.' . . ."* Such was Leo XIII.'s first official utterance from the Apostolic Throne. On the 2 1 St of April appeared his first encyclical let ter, Inscrutabili, on the evils which torment society in Christian countries and endanger its very existence, as well as on their causes and their remedy. It foreshadowed all the teachings of the magnificent scries of encyclicals which were to issue in succession from his pen. He seeraed to feel, while penning this first great doctrinal epistle, that the burden of old age was heavy on hira, as well as the terrible load of care imposed by his charge. He therefore put all his thought and strength into this first letter, warning, with the voice and the au thority of a prophet, governments and peoples of the fear- * " Leonis XIII. Pont. Max. Acta," vol. i. pp. 37-41. FIRST ENl YCLICAL LETTER, " IX SCR U I .IBI LI." 327 ful causes of social disaster and ruin which were at work in their midst. Every word and act of Leo XIII. had, during the first month after his election, been watched with a keen if not with a friendly interest by the liberal press of Italy and •all Continental Europe. The rumor had been industri ously circulated that he had made up his mind, if not to depart entirely from the line of policy pursued by Pius IX., at least to modify it deeply. The Italian revolutionists identified, or pretended to identif}-, the wholesale political, legislative, and irreligious changes which they had brought about in the Peninsula with what in other lands was called " progress " and " mod ern civilization." They wished the Pope, and all Catholics with him, to accept the usurpation of the States of the Church, the occupation of Rome, the suppression of the Religious Orders, the sequestration of Church property, the laws on matrimony, on education, and those even which degraded the priesthood and deprived both the Pope and the bishops of the liberty essential to their of fice, as the natural consequence of the development of that "modern civilization," and, by accepting "accomplished facts " as done and over, to be reconciled with the existing state of things. This iniquitous and impossible " reconciliation " Pius IX. had denounced, exposed, and stigmatized with an eloquence and a truth which commended themselves to the judgment of all rea! statesmen, sound politicians, and true Christians. Just as well, in the days of Mohammed IL, had the Turks succeeded in conquering Vienna and Rome, and with thera the Austrian Empire and the Italian Peninsula, could the victor have demanded of the then existing Pope to accept the change of governments as " progress," and have expected the Church to become re conciled to the Koran and to such toleration and liberty as Constantinople met with in 1450, and Seville and To ledo in 715. It was persistently asserted, and was believed in «oiric 328 LIPE OF LEO XIII. quarters, that Leo XIII. would yield to the force of events and endeavor to devise a modus vivendi with the masters of Rorae and Italy. So, in spite of the forraal and soleran declarations to the contrary contained in the Pope's first allocution in spite of the confirraatory stateraents to be found in other utterances of his, the liberal press still continued their tac tics of contrasting the new Pontiff's raoderation of mind, high culture, liberality of sentiraent, and knowledge of modern society and its exigencies with the " unyielding and uncomproraising " spirit and teraper of his predecessor. They were irapatiently expecting the first encyclical, which like the discourse of a prirae minister at the opening of Parliament, or the first raessage to Congress of a newly elected Araerican president, is taken as a programme of his future policy. The encyclical at length appeared, dated on Easter Sun day, the 2ist of April, 1878, and it did show in the most remarkable manner that Leo XIII. had a perfect " know ledge of modern society and its exigencies," a thorough insight into Christian civilization, its principles and benefits to mankind. But it wofully disappointed all who fancied or hoped that a Pope could reconcile the revealed truth of which he is the divinely appointed guardian, the righteous ness, justice, and divine morality which flow from the revealed law of life, with the awful errors, the unbridled licentiousness of thought and word and deed, the iniquity and the immorality, which are cloaked over by their pre tended civilization. If we have been able in the preceding chapters to con vey to the reader the conviction or the impression that Joachira Pecci, while Bishop of Perugia, in giving to his people the magnificent instructions mentioned by us, was giving them the light of revealed truth as he conceived it, and dealing out to them full draughts of Christian wisdom, the philosophy which builds up and perfects and preserves states, then we shall find the same light shining now with greater splendor. From the hill-top on which is throned THE BATTLE AGAINST CHRISTIANITY. 329 Perugia the zealous bishop could only speak to Urabria, or at most to Italy. From the sublime elevation of the Chair of Peter, Leo XIII. speaks with authority to all mankind ; the light imparted by his teaching illurainates both hemispheres. We say it with the deepest and most intense conviction of the truth of what we say, that in defending Catholic truth, the institutions and morals of Christian society, Leo XIII. defends the dearest, deepest, raost vital and sacred interests of every Protestant country on the face of the globe, the essential liberty, raorality, and happiness of every Protestant horae in existence. Once more we affirm it : the battle which is now raging in Italy and in Spain, in France and Gerraany and Belgium, in Great Britain and even in our own United States, is not so much a battle against Catholicism as the raost powerful, wide-spread, compact, and ancient form of Christianity, as against Christianity itself, against the very notion of reli gion, the very existence of social order, the very founda tions of that glorious civilization which has given to Europe the leadership of the world. If any man doubt this, then let hira read this first en cyclical letter of Leo XIII. We can only give a few extracts. But these will satisfy the earnest and the can did minded that the world has rarely heard such eloquent and pregnant lessons fall even frora the Chair of Peter. It is addressed in the usual form to all the bishops of the Catholic world, by the Supreme Pastor to his fellow-labor ers in the fold of Christ : * " As soon as, by an inscrutable design of God, we were, albeit unworthy, raised to the sublirae height of this apos tolic dignity, we felt impelled by a strong desire and by a kind of necessity to address you by letter, not only for the purpose of expressing our heartfelt affection for you, but for that of discharging the duty of our divinely entrusted office by encouraging you — you who are called to bear a ¦*An encj'clical letter, like a papal bull, is ahvays designated by the two or three first words. This is termed the encyclical Inscrutabili. o3o LIFE OF LEO XIII. part in our care — to continue with us the battle for the Ciiurch of God and the salvation of souls. " Frora the very beginning of our Pontificate we have before our eyes the sad spectacle of the evils which assail raankind frora every side. There is a wide-spread subver sion of the cardinal truths on which the very foundations of human society repose. There is a wicked disposition of men's minds which is impatient of all lawful power. There is a perpetual foment of dissension, begetting internal strife, cruel and bloody wars. There is a contempt of the laws of raorality and justice, an insatiable yearning for the transitory goods of earth, and a forgetfulness of the eternal, carried to the insane pitch of causing so many unhappy persons to lay violent hands on themselves. There is an inconsiderate administration, a squandering, an upsetting of the public property and revenues ; and there is the brazen impudence of men who, when they deceive their fellows raost, make thera believe that they are the promot ers of patriotism, of liberty, of right of every kind. There is, in fine, a pestilential virus which creeps into the vital organs and raerabers of huraan society, which allows thera no rest, and which forebodes for the social order new revo lutions ending in calaraitous results." No one who is at all acquainted with the social condi tion of the civilized world but will admit the truth of this diagnosis. Now, what is the nature, what the source of this universal distemper? " As to the cause of all these evils, we are persuaded that it lies principally in this : that men have despised and rejected the holy and august authority of the Church, which, in the name of God, is placed over the human race and is the avenger and protector of all legitimate authority. The eneraies of public order were full}^ persuaded of this when they found no means of destroying society to its foundations so efficacious as persistent attacks on the Church of God, by assailing her with the weapons of shameless calumny, by odiously accusing her of being the enemy of true civilization, by daily damaging her author- THE CAUSES OF THE PRESEX f SOCI.tL EVII S. 331 ity and influence in some new \\:\y, and subverting the supreme power of the Roinan Pontiff, who is the asscrter and protector on earth of the eternal and unchangeable interests of goodness and righteousness. " Hence the origin of these laws which overturn the divine constitution of the Catholic Church, and which we lament to see in vigor in most countries ; hence came the contempt of episcopal authority, the obstacles opposed to the free exercise of the ecclesiastical ministry, the destruc tion of religious communities, and the public sale of the property which supported the rainisters of the Church and fed the poor ; hence carae the withdrawing from the salu tary control of the Church of the public institutions of charity and beneficence ; hence sprang the unbridled liberty of teaching and publishing all manner of evil, while, on the other hand, the right of the Church to train and to educate the young is violated and suppressed. Nor is any other purpose to be found for the usurpation of the civil princi pality which Providence conferred, raany ages ago, on the Bishop of Rome, to enable him to exercise freely, without let or hindrance, the power given hira by Christ for the eternal salvation of the race.'-' To be sure, sorae of our non-Catholic readers will not, perhaps, be ready to grant that the priraal and chief source of modern social evils springs frora the successful conspi racy organized against the Catholic Church and her insti tutions, especially against the Papacy and the Teraporal Power. But, unfortunately for their view of this great question, we have the recorded utterances of the head-con spirators themselves — of Weishaupt and Frederick II. and Voltaire, without mentioning so many others of the so- called " philosophers " of the last century — of the recog nized leaders of the sceptic, rationalistic, scientific, and sociahstic schools of the present age. They now proclaira it openly in France, in Belgiura, in Germany, in Switzer land, as well as in Italy, where they have carried out to the letter the old programme of the anti-Christian leagues. They are not afraid of Protestantism, because it is not 2 2 2 LIFE OF LEO XIII. a unit like the Catholic Church, and because the Protestant sects, with their Bible and proselytizing societies, are use ful and energetic allies in battering down the bulwark of the coramon enemy — the Church of Rome. None the less true is it that all the forces of infidelity and revolution are marshalled against Christianity as em bodied in that grand old Church. And equally evident is it that as in Perugia, so in Rorae and from his seat of authority in the Vatican, he whom we call Leo XIII. leads to battle the forces of those who fight for Christ and reve lation and social order. In addressing himself to the Catholic hierarchy, dis persed all over the globe, he does not, he says, mean to sadden thera by depicting the sad social condition of Chris tian peoples, but clearly to point out to them toward what purpose their coraraon zeal raust be chiefly directed. And then, as if to furnish thera a rich theme for the instruction to be given to their flocks, intellectual weapons for the campaign which he wishes them to begin against the eneraies of order and huraanity, he sketches true civili zation with a masterly hand : " It is well known and self-evident that we cannot con ceive of a community in which true civilization is not based on the everlasting principles of truth and the immutable laws of rectitude and justice, and in which men's hearts are not united by sincere love, and where such love does not sweetly regulate the interchange of duties and relations. " Now, who will dare to deny that it is the Church, which, by preaching the Gospel to the nations, has borne the light of truth into the raidst of savage races plunged in hideous superstition, and has thereby led them to acknow ledge the Divine Author of the world and to reform their lives? that it was the Church which did away with the mis eries of slavery and lifted up mankind once more to their sublime native dignity? that she it was who, planting the sign of redemption on every shore, brought thither at the sarae tirae or took under her protection the sciences and the arts, founded and fostered the admirable institutions of TRUE AND FALSE CIVILIZ.ITION. 2)0J charity in which every form of suffering was assuaged, and everywhere instructed and elevated the populations, de livered them from squalid poverty, and labored in every way to make them live in a manner suitable to the dignity of human nature and to its hoped-for destinies? " If any sensible man in our day will corapare the age in which we live, so bitterly hostile to the religion and Church of Christ, to those blessed ages when the Church was honored as a mother by the nations, he Mill surely find that the society of our day, so convulsed by revolutions and destructive upheavals, is raoving straightway and rapidly toward its ruin ; while the society of the forraer ages, when most docile to the rule of the Church and most obedient to her laws, was adorned with the noblest institu tions and enjoyed tranquillity, riches, and prosperity. If the many blessings which we have enumerated, springing as they did from the ministrations and salutary labors of the Church, are the characteristic works and ornaments of true civilization, then, far from being averse to it or repel ling it, the Church of Christ, on the contrary, claims that to her belongs the glory of having given birth to it, nursed and developed it. " More than that, the kind of social civilization which is so hostile to the doctrines and laws of the Church is found to be only a hollow imitation of the reality, a mere name without the substance. You have the proof of this in the peoples on whom the light of the Gospel never shone, in whose manner of living there appeared, indeed, a certain false semblance of true civilization, but the solid and substantial fruits of its culture were not there. " Assuredly that is not to be deemed the perfection of civilized life which boldly contemns all lawful power ; nor is that to be esteemed liberty whose wretched progress is marked by the unrepressed propagation of error, by the unbridled gratification of evil desires, by the impunity allowed to guilt and crirae, and by the oppression which weighs on good citizens of every rank. All these are wrong, are bad, are absurd, and cannot, therefore, avail to 334 LIFE OP LEO XIIL perfect the huraan race or to bless it with prosperity, for sin maketh nations miserable ;* on the contrary, they must by corrupting both minds and hearts, drag down by their very weight nations into every crime, ruin all order, and at length bring the condition and peace of a common wealth to extreme and certain destruction. " Now, if we consider the labors of the Papacy, what can be more unjust than to deny the great and glorious ser vices rendered to the whole civilized world by the Bishops of Rorae? Our predecessors, in securing the good of the nations, never hesitated to face struggles of every kind, to undergo any araount of labor, to expose themselves to bitter troubles. With their eyes fixed on heaven, they did not quail before the threats of the wicked, nor allow either flattery or bribes to elicit frora them an assent which would prove them to be degenerate and unworthy of their office. " It was this Apostolic See which collected and built up together again the remains of ancient society fallen asun der; it was the Apostolic See in whose friendly beacon light shone forth the civilization of the Christian ages; it was the anchor of salvation which held the bark of human ity amid all the fearful storms that assailed it ; it was the sacred tie of concord through which the most widely sepa rated nations, and the most opposed in their manners and customs, were bound together in one great society; it was, finally, the coraraon centre at which the nations sought not only the doctrine of faith and religion, but the means to bring about peace and the wise counsels for administer ing their affairs. " Why say so much ? It was the glory of the Popes that they placed themselves, with inflexible constancy, like a wall and a bulwark to prevent human society from fall ing back into the ancient superstition and savagery. "Would to God that this salutary authority had never been neglected or repudiated ! Then, assuredly, civil sove reignty itself would not have lost that august and sacred ¦* Proverbs xiv. 34. The Protestant Version says: " Sin is a reproach to any people." WHIT IHE PAPACY HAS DONE. 335 character which religion had bestowed upon it, and which alone gave to the obedience of the subject its worth and nobility; nor should wc have witnessed so many rebellions and wars which have filled the earth with blood and misery ; nor would realms formerly raost prosperous and powerful be now fallen down to the depths of helplessness and oppressed b}- calamities of every kind. An exaraple of this is afforded by the Eastern peoples, who, breaking asunder the sweet ties which bound them to this Apostolic See, have forfeited the splendor of their primitive glory, their fame for the culture of the arts and sciences, and their rank among the nations." The Pope here enumerates the special benefits for which ungrateful Italy is indebted to the Papacy. He points to the great names shining like stars of the first magnitude along the illustrious line of his predecessors — great, good, and glorious Pontiffs, who were the parents and protectors of Italy and the benefactors of the human race. " This great city itself, the seat of these Pontiffs, bears witness to the countless benefits conferred by them ; it became the strong citadel of the faith, the refuge of all the arts of civil ization, the abode of wisdom, winning for itself the admira tion and reverence of the whole world. As the greatness of all these services is recorded for eternal remembrance in the monuments of history, it is easy to understand that only by bitter hatred and unworthy falsehood, uttered for the purpose of deceiving the unwary, and published from pulpit and press, could this Apostolic See have been repre sented as an obstacle to the civilization of Italy or to the happiness of her peoples. " If, therefore, the hopes of Italy and of the Christian world are founded on the influence attached to the author ity of the Holy See, an influence so salutary for the advan tage and welfare of all ; if they also are placed in that close bond of union by which all Christ's faithful people are held in communion with the Roman Pontiff, no duty for us is greater than to maintain secure and inviolate the dignity of the Roman Chair, than to strengthen more and more the 336 LIPE OF LEO XIIL connection of the members with their Head, of the chil dren with their Parent. " Wherefore, first of all, in order to assert in the only way now possible the rights and the liberty of this Holy See, we declare that we shall never cease to contend for the full obedience due to our authority, for the removal of all obstacles put in the way of the full and free exercise of our rainistry and power, and for our restoration to that condition of things in which the provident design of the Divine Wisdora had forraerly placed the Roman Pontiffs. " And in demanding such restoration we are moved by no ambition, no desire of domination, but only by the best interests of our office and by the sacred oaths we have taken ; and, besides, not only because the civil sovereignty is necessary for the protecting and preserving of the full liberty of the spiritual power, but because, moreover — a thing in itself evident — whenever there is question of the teraporal principality of the Holy See, then the interests of the public good and the salvation of the whole of human society are involved. " Hence it is that in the fulfilraent of our duty, which obliges us to defend the rights of holy Church, we renew and confirra by this letter all the declarations and pro testations which our predecessor, Pius IX., issued and reiterated both against the occupation of his civil princi pality and against the violation of the rights belonging to the Roraan Church. " At the sarae tirae we address ourselves to sovereigns and to those who are the supreme rulers of states, and im plore thera again and again, in the august name of the Most High God, not to reject at this needful time the aid offered them by the Church, and that they unite in friendly zeal in favor of that great source of authority and salvation, and seek to be united to her more and raore by the ties of hearty love and reverence. " God grant that, discovering the truth of what we have been saying, and being theraselves convinced that the doc trine of Christ, as Augustine was wont to say, is a mighty His Holiness takincj Recreation in the Garden of the Vatican. 338 LIPE OP LEO XIII. safeguard to the state when it finds obedient observance,* and that in the safety of the Church and dutiful obedience to her are to be found the interests of the public surety and tranquillity, they would bestow their thought and care in alleviating the evils which afflict the Church and her visible Head ! Thereby would it corae to pass that the peoples whom they govern, entering on the paths of justice and peace, would enjoy a golden age of prosperity and glory." f Such was the impressive appeal to the governments of our day, reminding them that those who had the temerity to touch and to change the great principles on which the God whom all Christians adore has established the Chris tian order in society were moving the foundations pf the earth, letting loose the earthquake, the whirlwind, and the flame, and opening up an abyss in which peoples and rulers will be surely engulfed. He therefore adjures them by the august name of the Most High God to listen to the warning words of the Vicar of Christ. It was the warning of a prophet. Then, remembering that the family is the organic ele ment from which the state springs ; that domestic society is the nursery in which, together with all Christian virtues, are fostered all the solid and noble qualities and habits which alone make great citizens; that on the Christian training of children from their tender years must spring, as the ripe and full fruit from the flower, the education- Christian in its aims, its principles, and its methods— which is the forraative force of the raodern world, he thus ad dresses himself to the bishops on the family, its institu tions and its education : " In the next place, desiring to draw more closely day by day the bonds which unite the entire Catholic flock with the Suprerae Pastor, we here address ourselves to you. Ven erable Brothers, with especial affection, and earnestly be seech you to display your priestly zeal and pastoral vigi lance in kindling in the souls of your people the love of our * Ep. 138, alias 5 ad Marcellinum, n. 5. \ " Acta," vol. i. pp. 44-52' EDUCATION AND THE CHRISTIAN FA. MILY. 339 holy religion, in order that the}- may thereby become more closely and heartily attached to this chair of truth and jus tice, accept all its teachings with the deepest assent of mind and will, and unhesitatingly reject all opinions, even the most wide-spread, which they know to be in opposition to the doctrines of the Church. " On this point the Roman Pontiffs who have come be fore us, and, last of all, Pius IX., of saintly memory, espe cially in the Council of the Vatican, had present to their minds the words of St. Paul : Beivare lest any man cheat you by philosophy and vain deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the zvorld, and not according to Christ ;* hence they lost no needful opportunity to con demn spreading errors and raark them with the apostolic censure. All these condemnations we, following the exara ple of our predecessors, confirm and renew from this apos tolic seat of truth, beseeching fervently, at the same time, the Father of lights that all the faithful, being perfectly of 'one accord and agreeing in sentiment,' should be of one mind with us and speak the same thing. "Your duty it is. Venerable Brothers, to bestow unremit ting care on scattering the seeds of the heavenly doctrines broadcast over the field of the Lord ; to raake Catholic teaching penetrate, in good time, into the minds of the faithful ; to plant it deeply there, and to keep it safe frora admixture with corrupt doctrines. The more active the enemies of religion are to teach the unlearned, the young especially, what clouds their intellect and corrupts their morals, the more should you exert yourselves to establish not only a well-adapted and solid raethod of instruction, but a method in every way, both in letters and in disci pline, in conforraity with the Catholic faith, especially as regards mental philosophy, on which the right teaching of all the other sciences depends in a great measure — a phi losophy such as shall prepare the way for divine revelation instead of airaing at overturning it ; which shall defend *Colpssians ii. 8. 3.^0 LIFE OF LEO XIII. revealed truth, as in their writings did the great Augus tine, the Angelic Doctor, and the other teachers of Christian wisdom. " The best way of training youth, however — that which conduces to preserve the integrity of both faith and morals — should begin frora early childhood and in the Christian horae. Unhappily, the Christian faraily in our times has been sadly disturbed, and can only recover its proper dig nity by being governed by the laws under which it was placed in the Church by the Divine Author of both. By raising the matriraonial contract, in which He willed us to see the sign of His own union with the Church, to the dig nity of a sacrament. He not only sanctified the union of husband and wife, but also provided most efficient helps for both parents and children to fulfil their rautual and respec tive duties, and thereby the more easily attain to everlasting- life and the happiness of the present. " But irapious laws, taking no account of the sacredness of this great sacrament, placed it on the same level as all raerely civil contracts ; and the deplorable result has been that citizens, desecrating the holy dignity of marriage, have lived in legal concubinage instead of Christian matrimony; the married pair have violated the fidelity pledged to each other ; the children born to them have refused them obedi ence; and, what is raost scandalous and most baneful to public morality, very often unhallowed love was followed by fatal quarrels. All these unhappy and deplorable results must move your zeal to warn your faithful peoples assidu ously and fervently to have a reverent regard for the doc trine of the Church on holy matrimony, and to observe scrupulously the laws of the Church regulating the mutual duties of parents and children. " From this we shall obtain one blessed fruit— that every member of Christian society will reform his own conduct and outward raanner of living. The decayed or degenerate trunk of a tree puts forth shoots that are worse still and bear unhappy fruit. So does the moral evil which infects the tree of domestic life become a contagion which commu- UTILITY OP PIOUS CONFRA TERNITIES. 34 1 nicates its virus to the community and yields a baneful harvest for public life. " On the contrary, where Christian families are governed by the law of Christ, all their members are habituated by degrees to cherish religion and piety, to look with horror on false and pernicious doctrines, to practise virtue, to obey their superiors, and to control that tendency to self- seeking which is the root of human degeneracy and degradation. " Toward this purpose not a little help will be found in the proper encouragement and direction of the pious asso ciations which have sprung up in our day to the great bene fit of Catholic interests. "These are lofty objects, requiring superhuman efforts, which we hope and wish to see realized. But God has made the nations of the earth susceptible of healing, since He founded the Church for the salvation of mankind, and promised that His help should not fail her to the end of time; we therefore firmly trust that by working together we shall enable the huraan race, warned by so many evils and calamities, to seek for salvation and prosperity in obe dience to the Church and in listening to the infallible teach ing of this Apostolic Chair."* A few months later Leo XIII. will seize an opportunity for outlining his doctrinal plan : " From the very first days of our pontificate, and from the elevation of the Apostolic Chair, we turned our eyes toward the society of our day, to ascertain its condition, investigate its needs, and to counsel the remedial measures. ..." And what principally arrested the Pontiff's attention? "• . . The waning of truth — not only of the truths of the supernatural order which are known by the light of faith, but of natural truth, both speculative and practical ; the prevalence of the most baneful errors, . . . disorders everywhere increasing. . . . "The most potent cause of such raoral ruin is the sepa- * Ibidem. 342 LIFE OF LEO XIII. ration, the attempted apostasy, of actual society from Christ and from His Church, in which alone resides the virtue sufficient to repair all the enormous evils done it." The conviction that, under God, the Church alone estab lished by Him was able to cope with the manifold evils which were desolating society, makes him, almost at the outset, renew the solemn protest of Pius IX. on his death bed against the usurpers of the temporal principality of the Holy See. Then he unfolds his plan for combating the dorainant anti-social errors. CHAPTER XXI. LEO XHI. FACE TO FACE WITH ANTICHRIST IN ROME. *^^'0 Cardinal Siraeoni, who had been Pius IX. 's last and vi/ trusted Secretai}- of State, Leo XIII. had substi tuted, on March 5, Cardinal Alexander Franchi, for several years the prefect of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide, in one respect the raost important charge in the Church'. The new Secretary of State, whose position at the head of the Propaganda had brought him into personal contact with the bishops of four-fifths of the globe, and who was thoroughly acquainted with the affairs of all the churches outside of Italy, Spain, and France, was a man of singular ability. His vast experience, his quick tact, sure judg ment, and amiable disposition enabled him to overcome obstacles and to settle difficulties which had defied all the skill and labor of others. One of his first acts was a hurried journey to Ireland, where the question of university education, the first start ling alarms of an approaching faraine, and the reappearance of secret societies begotten of starvation and coercion were rendering the labors of the bishops one of extraordinary difficulty. His brief visit is still gratefully reraerabered by the Irish ; for it testified to the Holy Father's intense de sire to know the true condition of things in that unfortu nate land of unrest and misgovernment. Certain it is, as we shall see, that Leo XIII. had a clear conception of the just claims of Ireland to self-government and to a full and practical religious liberty, and that his efforts thenceforward aimed at keeping the Irish Catholics and the National party within the strict bounds of con stitutional agitation, legal, orderly, and peaceful methods, while seeking for the justice which so many illustrious Eng lishmen acknowledged to be due to thera. 344 LIFE OP LEO XIII. Cardinal Franchi had no little share in Leo XIII.'s so licitude for the Asiatic missions, with whose every need he was thoroughly acquainted. The Pope's generous policy toward the Eastern peoples, and his warm sympathies for the forlorn condition of the Christian populations, were those of his Secretary of State, who seconded in every way the superhuman activity with which the Holy Father pushed forward every detail of the vast administration of the Church. But he was stricken down by a fatal illness on July 31, in the very beginning of his career, just when Leo XIII. had initiated him in his grand plan for advanc ing among the nations the cause of Christ, of His Church, of society and civilization, as against all their united and powerful enemies in our day. Cardinal Lorenzo Nina was chosen to succeed Cardinal Franchi. To set at rest at once and for ever all doubts and hypotheses about his principles and policy, Leo XIII. addressed to the new Secretary of State a letter, dated August 27, which contains a retrospect of the first six months of his Pontificate, and defines luminously the lines on which he intends to govern the Church, and to labor for the interests of Christianity and the nations. " It was a great misfortune and a great grief for us," he says, " to have so suddenly lost Cardinal Alexander Franchi, our Secretary of State. We called him to this high office because of the confidence inspired by his un common gifts of mind and heart, and the long services he had rendered to the Church. He so fully answered to all our expectations during the short time he labored by our side that his memory shall never by us be forgotten, and among those who come after us, as among the living, his name shall remain ever dear and blessed. " As, however, it has pleased our Lord to subject us to this trial, we adore with submissive will His divine counsels. And turning our attention to the choice of a successor, we have cast our eyes on you, my Lord Car dinal, whose skill in conducting affairs was well known to us, as well as your firraness of purpose and the generous LUMINOUS EXPOSITIOX OF LEO XIII.'S POLICY. 345 spirit of self-sacrifice towards the Church which animates you. " As you were entering on your charge we deemed it proper to address }-ou the present letter, in order to make known our mind to you concerning several most important points on which your unceasing care must be in a very spe cial manner bestowed. " In the very first da}-s of our Pontificate, and from the height of this Apostolic Chair, we turned our eyes to soci ety as it is at present, to ascertain its condition, to examine its needs, and to discover proper remedies. Since then, in the encyclical letters addressed to all our brother-bishops, we lamented the decadence not only of the supernatural truths made known to us by faith, but of the natural truths, both speculative and practical, the prevalence of the most fatal errors, and the very serious peril of society frora the ever-increasing disorders which confront it on every side. " We said that the chief reason of this great moral ruin was the openly proclaimed separation and the attempted apostasy of the society of our day from Christ and His Church, which alone has the power to repair all the evils of society. In the noonday light of facts we then showed that the Church founded by Christ to renovate the world, from her first appearance in it began to give it great com fort by her superhuman virtue ; that in the darkest and most destructive periods the Church was the only beacon- light which made the road of life safe to the nations, the only refuge where they found peace and safety. " From this it was easy to conclude that if in past ages the Church was able to bestow upon the world such signal benefits, she can also do it most certainly at present ; that the Church, as every Catholic believes, being ever ani mated by the Spirit of Christ — who promised her His unfailing assistance — was by Hira established teacher of truth and guardian of a holy and faultless law ; and that, being such, she possesses at this day all the force necessary to resist the intellectual and raoral decay which sickens society, and to restore the latter to health. 346 LIFE OF LEO XIII. " And inasmuch as unprincipled foes, in order to bring her into disrepute and to draw on her the enmity of the world, continue to propagate against her the gravest cal umnies, we endeavored from the beginning to dissipate these prejudices and to expose these falsehoods, resting assured that the nations, when they come to know the Church as she really is, and in her own beneficent nature, will everywhere willingly return to her bosom. " Urged by this purpose, we resolved also to make our voice heard to those who rule the nations, inviting them earnestly not to reject, in these times of pressing need, the strong support which the Church offers them. And under the impulse of our apostolic charity we addressed our selves even to those who are not bound to us by the tie of the Catholic religion, desiring, as we did, that their sub jects also should experience the kindly influence of that divine institution. " You are well aware, my Lord Cardinal, that in fol lowing out this impulse of our heart we addressed our selves also to the mighty emperor of the illustrious German nation — a nation which demanded our special attention on accou.nt of the hard conditions there imposed on Catholics. Our words, inspired solely by the desire to see religious peace restored to Germany, were favorably received by the emperor and had the good effect to lead to friendly negotiations. In these our purpose was, not to rest satis fied with a simple suspension of hostilities, but, removing every obstacle in the way, to come to a true, solid, and last ing peace. " The importance of this aim was justly appreciated by those who hold in their hands the destinies of that empire, and this will lead them, as we sincerely trust, to join hands with us in attaining it. The Church assuredly would re joice to see peace brought back to that great nation ; but the empire itself would not rejoice less that, consciences being appeased, the sons of the Catholic Church would be found still — what they had at other times proved themselves to be — the most faithful and the raost generous of subjects. THE APOSTOLIC SEE AND TIIE NATIONS. 347 " Nor could the countries of the East escape our father ly vigilance; there the great events which are just now in course of accomplishraent are, perhaps, preparing a better future for religious interests. Nothing shall be oraitted by the Apostolic See to proraote these ; and wc cherish the hope that the illustrious churches of these regions shall at length come to live a fruitful life and to shed abroad their ancient splendor. " These brief remarks reveal sufficiently, my Lord Car dinal, our design of extending largely the beneficent action of the Church and the Papacy throughout modern society in all its degrees. It is, therefore, necessary that you also should apply all your lights and all your activity to carry ing out this design which God has inspired us with. " Besides that, you shall have to give your serious atten tion to another matter of the highest importance — that is, to the very difficult condition created for the Head of the Church in Italy and in Rome when they had despoiled him of the temporal power which Providence so many cen turies ago had bestowed on him to protect the freedom of his spiritual power. "We do not wish to stop to reflect here that the viola tion of the most sacred interests of the Apostolic See and of the Roman Pontiff is fatal also to the welfare and the tranquillity of the nations, who, seeing the raost ancient and august rights violated in the person of Christ's Vicar, feel their deep notions of duty and justice seriously weak ened, their respect for law weakened, and thus the way is opened to destroy the very possibility of living together in society. " Nor shall we delay you to consider that the Catho- hcs of the different States can never feel at rest till their Supreme Pontiff, the supreme teacher of their faith, the moderator of their consciences, is in the full enjoyment of a true liberty and a real independence. " We cannot, however, help observing that while we need for our spiritual power, both on account of its divine origin and superhuman destination, and for the needful. 348 LIFE OP LEO XIII. exercise of its beneficent influence in favor of all human societies, the fullest and most perfect liberty, on the other hand the present conditions in which we are placed so hamper and limit it that we find it most difficult to govern the universal Church. The thing is notorious and proved by daily occurrences. The solemn coraplaints uttered by our predecessor, Pius IX., in the raemorable Consistorial Allocution of March 12, 1877, may with equal reason be repeated by us, with the addition of raany other grievances arising frora the new obstacles opposed to the free exercise of our power. " We have not only to deplore, as did our illustrious predecessor, the suppression of the Religious Orders, which deprives the Pontiff of a precious aid in the congregations which transact the most iraportant affairs of the Church. We grieve that divine worship sees its rainisters taken away by the law on railitary conscription, which compels all, without distinction, to serve in the army; that they with draw from our control and that of the clergy the institu tions of charity and beneficence founded in Rome by the Popes, or by Catholic nations who confided them to the watchful care of the Church. We grieve, with the intense, bitter grief which fills our heart as a father and a pastor, to find that we are compelled to see beneath our eyes in this Rome, the centre of the Catholic religion, the progress made by heresy, heterodox temples and schools built freely and in a great number, and to have to observe the perver sion which is the consequence, especially among young people, who are given an anti-Catholic education. But, as if all this were nothing, they are endeavoring to nullify the very acts of our spiritual jurisdiction. " It is well known to you, my Lord Cardinal, how, after the occupation of Rome, wishing to calm to some extent the consciences of Catholics who felt very uneasy about the fate of their Chief Pastor, the government publicly and solemnly declared that they would leave the nomination of the bishops of Itah- entirel}- in the hands of the Pope. Then, under the pretext that the acts of their canonical TYRANNY OF THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT. 349 institution were not submitted to the go\-crnment placet, not only were the new bishops depri\'ed of their revenues — thus throwing on the Holy See the heavy burden of supporting them — but, moreover, to the great spiritual in jury of their flocks, the governraent would not even acknow ledge the acts of episcopal jurisdiction perforraed by them, such as the nomination of parish priests or other beneficed persons. " And when, to obviate all these serious evils, the Holy See tolerated that the newly-elected bishops of Italy should present their bulls of nomination and of institution carried out in due canonical form, the condition of the Church was in no whit improved thereby. Notwithstanding this act of presentation, for one futile reason or another many bishops continued to be deprived of their revenues and to have their jurisdiction ignored. Those who can obtain their object see their petition sent from one office to another and subjected to endless delays. Men of the highest raerit, distinguished by their learning and virtue, deemed by the Sovereign Pontiff worthy of filling the highest degrees in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, are forced to see theraselves subjected to the most humiliating and prying disquisitions, as if they were vulgarians under the ban of suspicion. The venerable man designated by us to administer the Church of Perugia in our name, although placed already at the head of another church, and legally acknowledged therein, after a long period of waiting still vainly expects an an- • swer. Thus it is that, with a paltry cunning, they take away from the Church with the left hand what mere policy feigned to give her with the right. "To render this state of things still more painful, they lately began to assert the rights of royal patronage in several dioceses of Italy, with such exaggerated pretensions, accompanied by such odious measures, that the Archbishop of Chieti was judicially informed that they denied his juris diction, declared his appointment null, and ignored even his episcopal character ! "It is not to our purpose to insist on the nullity of such 350 LIFE OF LEO XIII. rights, which besides was confessed by not a few of our adversaries. It is sufficient to recall the fact that the Apos- folic See, to which is reserved to provide for -all episcopal sees, was only in the habit of granting the right of patron age to such sovereigns as had deserved well of the Church by supporting her interests, promoting her extension, in creasing her patriraony ; and that all who combat her by impugning her rights, appropriating her possessions, become by that alone, in accordance with the canons, incapable of exercising such patronage. " The facts touched upon so far evidently indicate the purpose of continuing in Italy a system of ever-increasing hostility toward the Church, and clearly show what sort of liberty is kept in store for her, and with what kind of re spect they intend to surround the Head of the Catholic religion. " In this most deplorable condition of things we are not ignorant, my Lord Cardinal, of the sacred duties im posed upon us by our sacred ministry ; and, with our eyes fixed on heaven, with our soul strengthened by the assur ance of the divine help, we shall study never to be unfaith ful to thera. . . ."* We have rather anticipated the order of events to sub mit this official programrae of Leo. XIII.'s policy to the judgment of the reader. It discloses clearly the grand purpose of his reign : to make rulers and peoples acknow ledge the Church as their divinely appointed guide and their safeguard against social errors and anarchy. The first encyclical of Leo XIII. was, indeed, a disap pointment to the Italian Radicals and to aU others who hoped or fancied that the new Pope would deviate from the policy of his predecessor, shake hands with King Umberto, and become reconciled with Antichrist and the Revolution in the persons of those who, in the cabinet of the Quirinal or in the Parliament of Montecitorio, were incessantly plot ting and planning to raake Rorae intolerable to the Pope, to see it rid of the last cardinal, the last raonk, the last priest. * "Acta," i. pp. 103-111. LEO XIII. AXD GERM AX Y. 35 I No doubt on that meraorable Easter Sunday, April 21, 1878, when the encyclical Inscrutabili was published, the prime minister, Depretis, and his associates of edl revolution ary and anti-Christian hues, were firraly convinced that the German emperor and his powerful arch-chancellor were the firm and devoted allies of the new Italian kingdom, and that they, like all the Great Powers, had as good as set their seal of sanction on the " facts accomplished " in Rome and in Italy We shall see how Leo XIII. defeated all their hopes. Certain it is that Leo XIIL, as we read in his own words quoted above, seems to have taken the initiative in his peaceful strategy against the Kulturkampf by writing himself to the Emperor William. It is also certain, from the discourse delivered at what may be called and what is regarded in Germany as the end of this war against the Church, on April 14, 1886, by Prince Bismarck himself, that he was quite disposed to raeet the Pope. Why the rehgious peace was not then concluded was due to rais- understandings on both sides, but principally, if not solely, to the national anti-Catholic and anti-Papal sentiraent in the German JReichstag and the nation, which persisted in regarding the Papacy in the Franco-German war as being " the rear-guard of the French army." In another chapter we shall have to discuss fully the Kulturkampf, and study the strategy with which Leo XIII. sought its extinction and succeeded. We can only say now that even when diploraatic relations were taken up and suspended and renewed, and then seeraed about to fail ut terly in their object, the Pope pursued his glorious plan of enlightening peoples, rulers, and governraents on their dan gers and the only way out of them, till it grew on the mind of the German emperor, his chancellor, rainisters, and his enlightened, conservative aristocracy, that Leo XIII. was God's prophet, sent to enlighten and to save the raodern social world, and that Catholicisra, where it is left free and fostered by the civil authorities, is the great conservative, vital force of the nations. 352 LIFE OF LEO XIII. The Pope also wrote to the Emperor Alexander II. of Russia and to the president of the Swiss Confederation; for in both of these countries Catholics were sorely op pressed, and the Holy Father trusted to make both of these governraents understand that their interest as well as their duty lay in protecting, not enslaving, the Church. How far he succeeded the sequel will also show. What he purposed doing for the Christians of the Turkish Empire we have just seen. But no mention is made of the great American continent. In the Canadian Confederation, however, as well as in the United States, the Sovereign Pontiff was left absolutely free to govern the Church as he chose. In Portuguese and Spanish America the secret anti-Christian societies had long made their home. In the last century they had planted their offshoots in the then flourishing colonies dependent on the two kingdoms of the Spanish Peninsula, and had cast deep roots in that virgin soil, waxing strong and spreading with the vigor and rapidity of tropical vegetation. When the great Catho lic teaching coramunities were suppressed there by the two raetropolitan governraents, society and education were like the palra and date trees left without the care of the hus- bandraan. The terrible parasites of scepticisra and unbelief had soon held them in their deadly clasp, and there was no one to lay the axe to the root of these creepers. The only hope for religion in Mexico, as in Brazil and all South and Central America, would be in annexation to the United States, in the introduction of American institu tions and a plentiful injection of American blood, American practical sense, political conservatism, reverence for religion, and the full liberty for the Holy See to regulate the Catho lic interests of the southern, as it does that of the northern, continent. But the Depretis cabinet had their strategy — a very ra dical and thorough one, too — by which they meant to de stroy not only the educational and missionary resources of the Church in Rorae and in the kingdora of Italy, but the very idea of Christianity in the rainds of the people, and A CARNIVAL OP IMPIETY AND BLASPHEMY. 353 thereby the very groundwork on which rests the possibility of the existence of the Church among a people. Further on we shall come to the quasi-confiscation of the Propaganda property. Now let us see the war in Rome itself. Whether the encyclical Inscrutabili had convinced the anti-Christian societies dominating both Italy and France that Leo XIII. thoroughly understood the war carried on by them against the Church, the very structure of Christian society, and the civilization which had sprung therefrom, or whether they had made up their minds to declare open war against the Pontiff and the Church of which he was the head, the year 1878 offered them a most favorable oppor tunity of soleranly proclairaing their purpose. It was the centenary year of the death of Voltaire. The conspirators against the Christian order on both sides of the Alps announced that they would raeet at Rome in the month of May, and there celebrate the death — the apotheosis,- as they terraed it — of the man whose life long watchword against Christ had been, Ecrasez linfdme — " Crush the man of infamy ! " It is well to recall this occurrence, because it places the civilized world face to face with the reality, with the true enemy whom Leo XIII. has had to contend with. It will enable all who still believe in Christ, even though they do not acknowledge Leo XIII. as their spiritual guide, to appreciate the nature of the struggle in which he is the central figure. And so Rome, under the cross of Savoy, beheld those who administered her government, sat foremost in her legislative halls, on the judicial bench, in all the public offices; the litterateurs who had been the apostles of in credulity, of revolution, and the apologists of impiety; the journalists who upheld the spoliation of the Papacy, and those who advocated in no uncertain tones the abolition of the existing royalty — all joined together in solemn conclave and in the orgies of intellectual licentiousness, within sight of the Vatican and the Quirinal. And with thera were th^ 354 lIPe of Leo xiii. raen who were fast turning France into the Republic of 1793, or airaing at one vast Commune for their country on the raodel of that of 1871. This meeting accentuated, to use a current expression, the fierce hostility of the French and Italian Liberal (!) press against the Holy See and the reigning Pontiff. There were sessions after sessions held in the halls where the Roman youth had been formerly taught the sublime truths of the Christian religion and the benefits it had conferred on raankind. It was a carnival of blasphemy and of cow ardly outrage against the Pontiff shut up helpless in the Vatican, and against all that the Catholic and the Christian world held to be most sacred or most venerable. In the English-speaking world these occurrences were not heard of or only received a passing notice. The sig nificance, the deadly importance of these anti-Christian raanifestations was understood only by the few. And what could the few do to awaken public attention to the designs and progress of that power which threatens the destruction of the moral world ? It is only when such fear ful outbursts of the spirit of disorder as the riots in London and in Belgiura, and even the labor troubles in the United States, happen to startle us from our lethargy, our dream of fancied security against socialistic revolution, that we begin to reflect upon Leo XIII.'s warnings and lessons. But surely the Voltairean and anti-Christian centenary feast 'at Rome in May, 1878, should, even now at eight years' distance, make us think seriously on the fault com mitted by the civilized world when they permitted Victor Emmanuel to take possession of the city of the holy apos tles. But we raust not iraagine that the true Rome — the Rome and the people who remained faithful to Christ and His Vicar, as distinguished from the new Rome, the Pied montese, with the scum of all Italy whom they had gath ered into it —did not resent the insult to their religion and to its Pontiff. They felt these satanical festivities to be directed against ACTS OF REPARATION BY CHRISTIAN RO.M.INS. 355 Christ Himself, and they spontaneously set about repairing the outrage b}- solemn devotions in the churches and by no less solemn protestations addressed to the Holy Father. Rome has been for raany centuries renowned for her ad mirable guilds and charitable societies. These comprise the very highest nobles as well as the simple artisan. They combined, in the last years of Pius IX., in a great union called, after him, La Federazione Plana. They ex tended their labors to the protection of Catholic interests, as well as to charity and beneficence. The union chose the feast of the Ascension of our Lord, which happened on May 30, to present theraselves before Leo XIII. and enter a solemn protest in the name of all true Romans and all patriotic Italians against the desecra tion of the Eternal City by the disciples of Voltaire and Antichrist. It was a touching scene, and the Pope, as well as all who were present on the occasion, felt it. To their address he answered, impressing on thera and on all Chris tians the importance of repairing the outrage offered to the Divine Majesty by this unparalleled outpouring of blas phemy. He especially felicitated them, the representa tives of the Christian Rome, on their courage and deter mination. It was not the only counter-demonstration which showed the Holy Father how deeply all classes of Roraans and Italians resented the abominable impiety which had run riot in Rome during the raonth especially dedicated to recalling the raemories of the Incarnate Son of God and His Blessed Mother. But to every deputation which waited on him he repeated his courageous words of advice and exhortation. The days of trial had corae for thera all ; they must take their share in the general persecution, and not refuse to suffer for truth and for Christ. On June 6, while Rome was still filled with the evil atmosphere left behind by the Voltairean celebration. Gen eral Kanzler and the veteran soldiers of the Pontifical Army came in a body to offer their homage to the new Pope. He was just the man to appreciate their senti- 356 LIFE OF LEO XIIL ments. For he was resolved to abate not one jot of his sovereign prerogatives in Rome, nor to forego the hope of seeing Providence restore in tirae the teraporal dominions indispensable to the free exercise of his .spiritual power. This was the hope he held out to the brave raen wdio had reraained true to the Pontifical flag. " To you," he said, in concluding his stirring address — " to you, glorious de fenders of right and justice, we shall say in conclusion : Persevere ; remain faithful to your duties. Let no act in your future life ever stain your honored career. If it please God to shorten the days of trial by granting us happier times, you shall be found at your post, ready to protect the sacred interests of the Church. Should it turn out other wise, you will have the consolation of having shared with us our ill-fortune and to have cast your lot with us." They were brave words, and he meant them, and those who heard thera treasured thera up as a hope and as a re-. ward. But there was another array whose soldiers were ever engaged in the terrible conflict, and who could not, like General Kanzler and his men, lay by their arms and wait for the day of battle. The battle for priests in Rome, in Italy, on every point of the European Continent, never ceases to rage, and no true man can leave the ranks or skulk away from the perils of the contest. The Piedmon tese governraent had wofully thinned the battalions of this spiritual railitia by suppressing, dispersing, banishing the Regular Orders. Rome has, ever since Christianity has extended its influence to all the nations of the earth, been a training-camp for the priesthood, for the apostleship to be exercised in all countries. This the Revolution under stood right well when it seized upon the great central raonasteries, novitiates, and schools of Rome. This was obliterating the very springs of Christian life, learning, and zeal. Pius IX., though deprived of the revenues of the Papal territories, made every provision his limited resources and the charities of the faithful enabled him to carry out for ROMAN CLERICAL STUDENTS VISIT TIIE POPE. 357 educating his clergy, for recruiting their ranks, and for keeping education and learning up to the highest levels. His successor was not the man to neglect such a blessed and necessary work, to leave it incomplete. He threw his whole strength into enlarging it rather, extending the sphere of clerical and lay education, and raising the stand ard of literary and scientific excellence far above that which governed the secular schools. And we shall see that he succeeded. VISIT OF STUDENTS. On June 13 the students of the Seminario Roraano and Seminario Pio, which were the special nurseries of the Pon tifical secular clergy, were adraitted to the presence of Leo XIII. Never does the personal character of the Pontiff show itself in such an araiable light as when he is surround ed by bands of serainarians or school-children. The raerao- ry of all his goodness to the young generations he reared in Perugia will live for ever in the hearts and on the lips of the people of Urabria. With his serainarians, however, the Pope loves to put in his speeches and conversation all the graces of the purest classic Latin. He delights in encouraging them to aim at perfection in everything. He loves to set ever before thera the high ideal of the priesthood, prcecelsa sacrorum ministro- rum dignitas — " the sublirae dignity of God's rainisters " ; to exalt, amid the present abasement of Rorae, the singular privileges of its clergy — Romani cleri nomen ac decus, nostro rum temporum conditio, quibus ingens errorum ac pestilens corruptionis lues undique grassatur — " and the sad condition of the present tiraes, when error and corruption like a twin stream of pestilential waters overspread the land." The men who composed the Italian government were well aware to what extent they had crippled the Church in her clergy by the suppression and banishment of the Mo nastic Orders, by the law of conscription compelling cleri cal students to serve their terra in the army, by the hope- 358 LIFE OF LEO XIII. less, helpless poverty to which the great mass of priests were condemned, by the degrading treatment to which both bishops and priests were subjected in their enforced relations with the civil authorities, and by a thousand-and- one petty means at the use of those in power to make life a burden to an odious class of citizens. Still, the source of clerical vocations was not dried up among the Italian populations, although the supply was reduced alarmingly. The governraent resolved to go to the very source itself, and to render the Christian family giving priests to the Church an irapossible thing. They would seize on all elementary schools, and banish from them all Christian spirit, all Catholic teaching, the very adored naraes of Christ and of God. And they did it in Rome, perhaps to honor the centen nial celebration in honor of Voltaire. But they did it! On June 26 the Pope addressed to Cardinal Monaco la Valletta, his vicar-general in Rome, a letter, admirable in every sense, on religious instruction in the schools of that city. The Piedmontese government had not been asham ed, in the city where St. Peter and St. Paul had preached and planted the faith, not only to forbid in all schools under their control the giving of any religious instruction whatever, but they had banished frora elementary schools frequented only by the children of Catholic parents the Catholic catechism. And yet, while still claiming the name of Catholics, these men allowed all other denominations to have their schools, to teach their catechism, and to take every means to entice Catholic children to attend them. It was not even fair play. But their iraraediate purpose was to de stroy the Catholic Church and religion. The rest would easily follow. Those who rejoiced at whatever event might upset the power of the Papacy, temporal as well as spiritual, and who even now clap their hands at seeing the revolution ists destroying every distinctive feature of Papal — that is, of Christian — Rome, ought to remember that the men who BANISHING RELIGION FROM PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 359 sought to banish the Catholic catechism from the schools of the Eternal City, while permitting tion-Catholic sects the fullest liberty of religious instruction and proselytism, arc the deadliest, the sworn, the professed enemies of Chris tianity itself, of all religion indeed. What Paul Bert did in France, in open pursuance of a design he never atterapted to conceal, that Doctor Baccelli, appointed Minister of Public Instruction in 1880, openly avowed as his purpose and carried out faithfully. He de clared that frora all schools in Italy should be systeraati- cally, carefully excluded all religious teaching, even that of the simplest Theism. Is it right, is it honorable, is it in accordance with Christian principle to be, even indirectly, the allies and auxiliaries of such men in dechristianizing Italy? Is it consistency, to have the Bible — the Bible in the Italian tongue, and unauthorized by the Pope or the Italian bish ops — ranked with the most blasphemous anti-Christian literature, and with the obscene and utterly abominable books and pamphlets, and flying illustrated sheets, which are studiously circulated in Italy to corrupt the hearts, the minds, the morals of the people? Surely, where the means employed by the present mas ters of Italy and of the Eternal City to blot out the no tion of God, and to raake the very name of Christ our Lord odious and ridiculous, are such as Beelzebub and Belial would avow, raen and woraen who have sincerely at heart the triumph of Gospel truth and morality should ask themselves in what company they are. It is not likely that demons would conspire to overthrow the empire of falsehood and vice. And where they and their visible agents are found arrayed against a venerable and widely- spread creed and order of things, the presumption is that that creed and that order are frora God. From the very beginning of his Pontificate Leo XIII. set his heart upon counteracting, by every agency which he could comraand, the effects of the irreligious and immo ral education given, of set purpose, to the children of Ro- 36o LIFE OF LEO XIII. man parents and the youth of the great public schools ever since 1870. Cardinal Monaco la Valletta gave the Pope effectual aid in this; and later, when Cardinal Parocchi, then Archbishop of Bologna, became cardinal vicar, he threw into the work of organizing a thorough system of secular and religious instruction in the primary schools of Rome all his intelligent zeal, experience, and characteris tic energy. But, as the government had taken forcible pos session of all priraary and intermediate secular schools ex isting at the tirae of the occupation of Rorae, the Pope had to create out of his own crippled resources a system of schools able to counteract the influence of the others. This was one great object of solicitude. We shall see further on what Leo XIII. effected in this direction. CHAPTER XXII. DIFFICULTIES— PILGRLMS— SOLICITUDE FOR FRANCE AND GERMANY — ENCYCLICAL ON SOCIALISM. [1878-1879.] Vyi I 'E have not enumerated all the difficulties which \jicA> from the outset beset the path of Leo XIIL, nor have we described their magnitude. To their solution the aged Pope brought a clear head, a firm purpose, an indomitable courage, a rare knowledge of raen and of the age in which he lived, consummate prudence and tact in dealing with sovereigns and statesraen as well as with churchmen and layraen of every class. Add to all these qualities an unbounded confidence in the God whose cause was entrusted to hira, and the simple faith, the living, ardent piety of the lowliest of Christians, refreshing and strength ening his soul in his gigantic labors. Formidable as were the obstacles opposed to the fulfil ment of his mission in Germany, France, and Belgiura, as well as in Russia and the Turkish Erapire, there was sorae hope of removing thera by degrees. But in Italy and in Rome itself no diploraatic skill, no concessions, corapro- mises, or transactions, could avail to conciliate or change the fell spirit of the revolutionary and anti-Christian governraent, which, under the narae of a. monarchy, moved as steadily, as scientifically, as fatally onward to the annihilation of the Church and the Papacy as a locomotive at full speed on a perfectly safe road, and directed by a skilled and expe rienced hand, raoves on toward its goal, crushing beneath its iron wheels the puny obstacles the hand of a child would oppose to its progress. We have seen, stripped of all disguises and fair natnes, the Voltairean, the anti-Christian power which is at present 361 362 LIFE OF LEO XIIL master of Rome, and presides in the councils of the muni cipality as it does in those of the government. Outwardly, to all human seeming, judging things from the standpoint of mere human wisdom and experience, and apart from some superhuman intervention of Providence, in May, 1878, there appeared not one ray of hope for the Papacy, for the preservation of the Church and of the Ca tholic religion in Italy, as against the irresistible domination of the established civil power and the fatal advance of the radical and irreligious spirit. The Italian prime minister could at any moment he chose order a company of chasseurs to occupy the Vatican, and to put Leo XIIL and his secretary, with their brevia ries and travelling-suits, into a hackney coach, as Napoleon I. ordered the seventh Pius, and have thera conveyed to the fortress of Fenestrelle or across the frontier. And not a European or Araerican power would have sent a fleet or an array to prevent the outrage. Thus it was in 1878. We see how bravely the Pope faces his enemies and pre pares to solve every difficulty, to ward off every danger, while neglecting not one detail of his vast administration, or the urging forward of a single one of the mighty mis sionary enterprises begun or pursued under his direction in every known land. Follow him in a few of the cares and labors, the joys and consolations also, which continue to fill up his days as the suraraer of 1878 passes into auturan. The governraent had devised a plan for "renovating" and "reforraing" the external aspect of Rome within and without the circuit of the ancient walls. It was intended, under the pretext of laying out new streets, of widening the old, and of providing room for the increasing popula tion, to blot out all the features of the mediaeval and Papal city; in a word, all the characters of the Christian Rome, the capital of the Christian world. The uninhabited quar ter on the Esquiline was laid out and united to the Quirinal by avenues intended to rival those of Paris or Berlin or PILGRIMS FROM GERMANY. 363 Vienna — as if the torrid climate of Rome in summer was compatible with broad, glaring, sunburnt, and wind-swept thoroughfares I No provision for Catholic worship Avas made in this new quarter. Indeed, it was openly said in official quarters that none would be raade by the govern ment or the cit}- authorities. The muiiiciptil council, like the cabinet and the legislature, was now under the control of the revolutionary clubs. . But from the Vatican the Holy Father watched the gradual destruction of the Rome of the Popes and the rapid increase of the city population. He could not leave the new comers devoid of all spiritual succor and comfort, and on August ii, calling before him the chapter and clergy of St. Mary Major, he entrusted to their priestly zeal and generosity the care of this new district. But with the summer also came bands of pilgrims from distant lands — m.en who felt the need of renewing at the feet of Christ's Vicar their pledges of fidelity to the law which it was sought to banish from the face of the earth, and to return home, comforted and strengthened "by his blessing, to continue the battle with scepticism, with open and professed unbelief, and with the terrible secret associa tions which pushed on their warfare on religion and all authority. The German Catholics, so fearfully tried by the Kultur kampf, or by what Prince Bismarck later called " the battle with the Church," sent a noble band of representative raen to enter their protest against the Voltairean Congress. They were presented to the Pope on May 23, and the words of filial love, reverence, and syrapathy uttered by them to the Coramon Parent were a .sweet consolation amid the hideous atheistic revelry covered by the sanction of the new masters, of Rorae. And he in return, whose heart went out to suffering Germany, found glowing words of praise and admiration for the pilgriras and their absent brethren. And here, as if pausing between two of these glorious pilgrim receptions at the Vatican, we corae upon a letter 364 LIFE OF LEO XIII. addressed on July 24 to the mayor and municipahty of Cork, in answer to their address of congratulation and filial horaage sent to the Holy Father on the preceding nth of March. Their homage was raost grateful to him he says. " It clearly showed us the reverence and filial piety you entertain toward us, which unite your own hearts together and do not fear to express themselves publicly. It also coraraended to us the religious sense and wisdom of your illustrious city, which found in you sons worthy of being entrusted with the adrainistration of its affairs. To you therefore, beloved sons, we gladly express in this letter our gratitude and affection ; and, ready as we are ever to give you every proof we can of our fatheriy love, we pray God frora our heart to be everraore your protector and helper, and so to inspire your counsels that your labors may procure His glory as well as the welfare and pros perity of your fellow-citizens." Simple, sincere, and loving words, which Cork will trea sure up in her records, and which found their echo in Ire land as if addressed to her long-suffering millions, promis ing thera that " God would also be their protector and helper," and the Pontiff who had succeeded to Gregory XV. and Urban VIIL, after an interval of more than two centuries, " would be ever ready to give them in their need every possible proof of his fatherly love and care." But here comes Spain in the beginning of autumn to have the representatives of all her provinces present in Rorae and at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiff on the feast of St. Teresa, October 15. The steamer Santiago had been retained to take the fifteen hundred Spanish pilgrims from Barcelona to Civita Vecchia, so as to avoid all delays and troubles on the road. The Bishop of Huesca was at the head of these sons of Catholic Spain, and everybody had reason to feel that nothing would happen to mar the expectation of the pilgrims. But they had not taken into account the spirit which now ruled the political affairs of Italy. Pilgrimages of every kind were the special abofnination of the men who CRUEL TREATMENT OF SPANISH PILGRLMS. 365 wished the Pope at the antipodes, and who had intended in 1848-49, during the siege of Rome, to blow up St. Peter's and the Vatican, Pilgrimages the anti-clerical raas ters of Rome considered to be a kind of foreign invasion. They kept up the idea of the Pope-King. Had they not killed the " King," and did they not hope soon to ex tinguish the " Pope," and have an Italy and a Rome entirely after their own heart ? The authorities were fearful for the public health if such a crowd of Spaniards were landed all at once upon the Italian shore; they kept the Santiago at quarantine for four entire days in the bay of Civita Vecchia, although no contagious disease reigned either in Barcelona or in any part of Spain. It was in vain that they deraanded to be in Rome before the 15th. The authorities were fully de termined that in Rorae they should not be on that day. They hoped that the Spaniards would profit by the lesson, and that the Bishop of Huesca would tell his brother- bishops that no raore Spanish pilgriraages would be wel come in the Rome in which they had been celebrating the apotheosis of Voltaire. Not before the 17th, two days after the feast, were the Spaniards able to be presented to Leo XIII. That he suf fered keenly at seeing such an indignity put upon hundreds of the best men of Spain, and led by one of her noblest bishops, we may well iraagine. It convinced the pilgriras, if other proofs were absent, of the untenable position of the Supreme Pastor of the Catholic world, living in his own episcopal city under the domination of a power all the more relentlessly hostile and anti-Catholic that both king and queen persisted in calling themselves Catholics ! It was short-sighted policy on the part of the Pied montese and their subordinates. For we Catholics from every land, thronging to the Tombs of the Holy Apostles and to the home of our Coramon Father, bear back with us to our own land the meraory of the humiliation he endures, of the restraints put upon his liberty, of the rudeness and insults offered to ourselves; and we resolve that the day 366 LIFE OF LEO XIIL shall come when the Pope shall be again sovereign of Rome. That is a hope and a vow registered in many a home of many a land as well as Spain, and the numbers of those who register these vows increase with each passing year. In Germany, hostile as it was in May, 1878, the hope and the vows of its returned pilgrims have been growing like seed in a blessed soil, till we see in May, 1886, what a formidable crop of sympathy for the Pontiff, indignation against the destroyers of Rorae, and threatening hostility toward its Voltairean government have sprung up all of a sudden to face usurpers and evil-doers. And in Spain, .and wherever the Spanish language is spoken, how ready the Spanish heart would be to catch fire and espouse the cause of the Pontiff whenever a brave leader and God's golden opportunity appeared ! Even in our own great republic will not the quick American sense, and the instinctive love of justice, and the passion for free dom of conscience soon be made to perceive that the dear est religious rights of our millions of Catholics, the dearest interests of civilization among the heathen, demand that the Pope, the great international peace-making power of the world, should be sovereign in the city where he has reigned for eleven hundred years ? All these pilgrims brought with them, together with their filial reverence and affection, their offerings of Peter's pence, the contributions of all the members of Christ's great family toward the support of His Vicar, now de spoiled of his patrimony. They were timely and much- needed offerings these, for in Italy alone there were many thousands of priests, monks, and nuns stripped of their lawful property by the usurping government, and left des titute of all earthly raeans of adequate sustenance. The raonth of February, 1879, concluding the first year of Leo XIII.'s Pontificate, witnessed in Rome a very mo mentous gathering. It was a congress of Catholic writers and journalists, who had corae, representative toilers of the pen, frora all countries to take advice from the Holy Fa- .) CONGRESS OF CATHOLIC WRITERS. 367 ther on the line of conduct to be followed by the Catholic press in treating of politico-religious questions. No as semblage, apart frora an oecuraenical council, could wield a greater influence over the course of public opinion, the direction of all intellectual currents, and the peace and prosperity of the Christian coramonwealth than such a gathering. Leo XIII. knew it, and sad experience had taught the truth of it to the men who gathered to hear Leo XIII. on February 22, 1879. ^^ France and in Spain, as is well known, political opinion among Catholics had divided the very best and most influential into opposite and bitterly hostile camps. In France this division had been still more complicated by theological and philosophical discussions. People in such cases, when they are conscientious and ar dent — and they were so on both sides of the Pyrenees — would naturally wish to have Rorae on their side. Men who defended religion and the dearest interests of the Church against rampant Csesarism, or no less rampant liberalism and deraagoguisra, would too often take on themselves to dictate to priests, bishops, and Pope the line of conduct they ought to pursue even in ecclesiastical raat ters, but more especially in the domain of politics. The pecuhar circumstances of the Holy See, the opportune ness or the inopportuneness of raaking concessions to the foreign invaders who had come from the foot of the Alps in time of peace to attack a defenceless and almost un armed power hitherto held sacred and inviolable by Chris tendom — all these were made the continual subject of news paper discussion, greatly to the injury of religion, to the scandal of the people, and to the detriment of the Papacy, whose interests it was sought to advance. On the question whether Italian citizens should throw themselves into the new cyrrent of political life, and there by recognize the legitiraacy of the existing governraent, the validity of the spoliations and suppressions accoraplished in Rome and throughout the Peninsula, lend an indirect sanc tion to the sacrilegious restrictions and violations of the 368 LIFE OP LEO XIIL Papal and episcopal spiritual jurisdiction daily and hourly taking place even in the Eternal City itself — these were sub jects which set men's hearts and heads aflame, and made their pens write words that burned like fire. Who could control these mighty forces of the press ? Who but the Vicar of Christ ? When this select body, representing the great host of the soldiers of Catholic truth, stood before him on that same 22d of February, he had but tender words of fatherly gra titude and blessing for them. What had he been himself in Perugia, during the thirty-two long years of intellectual combat with error and wrong, but a soldier of the truth, a toiler of the pen ? And so his whole heart went out also to those champions of God and his Church. Those who insisted on coming to terms with the Revo lution received, however, a stern rebuke : they " must not presume to decide in their own name and by their own light public controversies of the highest importance, bear ing on the circumstances of the Apostolic See, nor seem to have opinions in opposition to what is required by the dig nity and liberty of the Roraan Pontiff." But here in the following words speaks the heart of the Pontiff : " Beloved sons, who are supremely devoted to the Apo.s- tolic See, and show yourselves so ready to sustain its liberty and its honor, be also courageous and unanimous in em ploying both voice and pen in upholding the nece.ssity^'iof the temporal sovereignty for the free exercise of our supreme authority. With the records of history in your hand, show that there is no power on earth which can pretend to be superior or equal to it in the legitiraacy of the right and title frora which it sprang. If any one, in order to draw on you the hatred of the raultitude, should go about repeat ing that this temporal sovereignty is incompatible with the welfare of Italy and the prosperity of states, you, 'on the other hand, should rejoin that the safety and the prosperity of nations has nothing to fear from the sovereignty of the Popes and from the freedom of the Church. . . • Add Interior of the yATi9AN Library. 2>7o LIFE OF LEO XIII. this, which all know, that the Roman Pontiffs at all times bestowed the greatest pains in fostering the letters and sciences, that they were the generous protectors of the fine arts, and that with a just and paternal sway they made their people happy. Proclaim, in fine, to the world that the public affairs of Italy will never prosper nor enjoy per manent tranquillity until provision has been made, in accor dance with all sorts of reasons, for the dignity of the Ro man See and the liberty of the Sovereign Pontiff." In the beginning (9th) of September the Pope issued a new code of regulations for the use of the Vatican Library. Already he felt the necessity of stimulating Italian scholars to explore the rich mine of historical lore laid up in Rome, for so many centuries the head of the Christian, as it had long before been that of the pagan, world. In spite of the literary treasures taken away from time to time by those who had possession of the Eternal City, there still remained enough behind to tempt the ambition of the student. In the Vatican particularly, where are the archives of the Chris tian Church, the records of Christianity itself, it is im portant that those who would know what the Church did in the world should seek authentic information at its very source. That same month of September, 1878, had witnessed the establishment of a Council of Cardinals, whose special labor should be to select fit persons to fill the episcopal sees of Italy. The importance of this new act of Leo XIII. will at once strike all readers acquainted with the political and religious condition of the Peninsula. At any rate, the Pope, who, frora his lofty seat in Perugia, had watched the strug gles of the Italian hierarchy with the Piedmontese revo lutionists, and the desperate raeasures resorted to by the latter to bend the bishops to their own will, now resolved that every precaution which the divine wisdom of the Church can suggest should be eraployed to fill the vacant sees of Italy with none but the best raen — men of God, men of superior learning and superior virtue, men of inflexible principles and indomitable courage. Leo XIII. wanted to LETTER TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF COLOGNE. 371 do all a Pope could do to make the hierarchy of Italy the light of the world. Later, in November (21), the venerable Archbishop Gas- taldi, of Turin, who is still so gratefully and affectionately remembered by the Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland, received from the Holy Father a warra letter of thanks and praise for the acts of his Diocesan Synod. The same month witnessed the creation of the new dio cese of Leeds in England. The trials of German Catholics, particularly in Prussia, were stiff bitter in the extrerae. The Archbishop of Cologne had written to the Holy Father, giving an account of the sufferings endured, but rehearsing the glorious tale of the people's constancy to their baptisraal faith, of the priests' fidelity to their flocks and obedience to their bishops, of the perfect union of hearts and minds which reigned araong the bishops themselves, and of their devoted attachment to the Vicar of Christ. On December 24 the Pope answered the archbishop in one of those thrilling letters which sound like the address of a commander-in-chief to troops in battle array and facing the enemy. Bishops, priests, and people get their meed of praise. Glancing at the efforts made all through Germany by the Occult Force to inculcate errors the most pernicious to religion and society, and ever conscious that governments can have no efficient aid against this ubiquitous and destruc tive enemy save frora the Church, he informs the archbishop that he has raised his voice to the rulers of Germany to be at peace with the Church instead of combating and crippling her. While endeavoring to conduct to a successful termi nation the efforts made toward a lasting peace between Prussia and her Catholic subjects, he will continue to do the work which will, in the end, be most advantageous to the state, by denouncing error, exposing the magnitude and the causes of social disorders, and by pointing out the remedy. The Pope knew that every line of his letter would be eagerly and attentively read and studied by the Imperial government, by Prince Bismarck above all. He calculated. 372 LIFE OF LEO XIII. not without reason, on the effects which his own conserva tive teaching, which is that of the Church, of Christianity itself, would have on rainds that felt the need of such prin ciples, and raiist end by respecting the Church which up holds and practices thera. Then comes a vivid picture of what that Church has to endure at the hands of the Prussian and Imperial authori ties. Evidently the mind of Leo XIII. was then full of the encyclical which he was preparing to issue on Socialism, the one topic which, before all others, was at that moment sure to obtain the undivided attention of both the Emperor William and his prirae minister. It was published on December 28 : * " As the very nature of our apostolic charge required, we did not fail to point out to you frora the beginning of our Pontificate, in an encyclical letter, that mortal poison which circulates in the vital organs of human society and reduces it to the most extreme danger. At the same time we explained to you what were the raost efficacious reme dies by the application of which society may be restored to health and the grave perils which threaten it may be averted. " But since then the evils which we deplored have so rapidly developed that we are again obliged to address ourselves to you. It is as if the prophet thundered in our ears : Cry out, cease not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet ! f " You will easily understand. Venerable Brothers, that we are speaking of that class of men who, under various and strange names, are known as Socialists, Communists, or Nihilists, and who, spread over the globe and bound to gether closely by a criminal bond, no longer seek the friendly shelter of their secret conventicles, but come forth boldly into the daylight, and seek to carry out their long- cherished purpose of subverting civil society to its foun dations. * Encyclical Quod Apostolici muneris, Dec. 28, 1878. f Isaias Iviii. i. ENCYCLICAL ON SOCIALISM. 373 " These are the men who, as the word of God attests, deflle the flesh, and despise dominion, and blaspheme majesty.* They spare nothing, leave nothing untouched of all that divine and human laws have devised in their wisdom for the protection and adornment of life. The highest powers, to which, as the Apostle teaches, every living soul should be subject, and which hold of God the right to cora mand, they refuse to obey, and preach a perfect equality of all men, both with regard to their rights and to their duties. " They profane the natural union of husband and wife, which even barbarous tribes hold to be sacred ; and as to the marriage bond, which is the chief foundation of domes tic society, they either weaken it or make of it the play thing of passion. " Then, carried away by the greed of actual wealth, which is the root of all evils, which some coveting have erred from t/te faith, f they deny the right to hold property sanc tioned by the law of nature ; and by a savage audacity, under the pretext of providing for the needs and desires of all mankind, they aim at dispossessing people of all that they have lawfully inherited, or gained by their talents or industry, or hoarded from their savings. These monstrous opinions they proclaira in their raeetings, teach in their pamphlets, and spread through a host of organs in the press. From all these lessons such hatred sprang araong the seditious crowd against the raajesty and authority of rulers that criminal traitors, impatient of all control, have several times within a brief interval made irapious attempts on the lives of heads of states." % The Pope then gives the history of modern Socialistic error, tracing it back to the sixteenth century, when " a bitter war was declared against the Catholic faith, gaining strength continually down to the present time, and having for its aim to set aside all revealed truth, all the superna tural order ; to pave the way to reason with its discoveries, * Jude 8. f I Timothy vi. 10. X " Acta," vol. i. pp. 170-173. 374 LIFE OF LEO XIII. or its dreams rather. This error, wrongly taking its name frora reason, flatters and stiraulates raan's natural desire of lifting hiraself above others, gives a free rein to all the pas sions, and thus naturally found adepts in most men, and spread araong the social classes. " Hence, an irapious thing never dreamed of even by the old pagans, states were founded without any regard to God or to the order by Him established. It was given as a dictate of truth that public authority derives from God neither its origin, nor its majesty, nor its power to com mand, all that coming, on the contrary, from the multi tude ; and that the people, deeming themselves free from all divine sanctions, consented only to be ruled by such laws as they chose to enact. " The supernatural truths of the Christian faith, as a thing repugnant to reason, were denied and rejected, while the very Author and Redeeraer of the human race was eliminated frora the matters of study in the universities, colleges, and academies, and was finally banished by de grees from the whole intercourse of life. " In fine, the rewards and punishraents of the life to corae were put out of raind and sight, and the ardent wishes of the huraan breast for happiness were limited to the narrow corapass of the present life. " By spreading such doctrines far and wide, such an un bridled licentiousness of thought and action was begotten everywhere that it is no wonder if raen of the lower classes, disgusted with their poverty-stricken homes and their dis- raal workshop, are filled with an inordinate desire to rush upon the horaes and fortunes of the wealthy ; no wonder is it that tranquillity is banished frora all private and pubhc life, and that the huraan race seems hurried onward to its ruin." In his first great doctrinal letter or encyclical Leo XIII. had spoken of certain doctrines, sedulously and widely inculcated in our day, which poisoned men's minds, inflamed their worst passions, and created ever-increasing disorder and convulsions in the body politic wherever they DESCRIPTION AND HISTORY OF SOCIALISM. 375 were allowed to prevail. These doctrines and their effects were happily corapared to some such poison as strychnine, which attacks the nervous centres and causes fearful spasms and convulsions. By this poison he meant Socialistic error ; and this it is which the Pope makes the subject of this most iraportant letter. Two countries in particular were, at the close of 1878, a prey to Socialism — France and German}'-. In the former Socialism was openly in close alliance with the secret socie ties. The latter were now at the head of the government, counted among their adepts the majority in both houses of the French legislature, and were slowly but surely advanc ing toward the realization of their ideal — a Socialistic re public without any forra of religious worship and totally adverse to the influence of religion, its ministers and pro fessors, on any department or function of the state or in any walk of public life. The Comraunists and Anarchists, who were the most "advanced" and exaggerated forms of Socialism, were cla morous for a greater share in the manageraent of public affairs. The Coraraunists in particular, who had been ira- prisoned or banished after their excesses in 1871, were par doned, recalled, brought back to France at the public ex pense, and received as brothers and as sufferers for a cora mon cause by the raen in power. They constituted one impelling force in France, ever urging the governraent and legislature to raore radical, revolutionary, anti-Christian measures. We see, in 1887, how wonderfully they suc ceeded. The Anarchists, though only raore consistent Comrau nists, were looked upon with suspicion, if not with dread, by the rulers of France. They dared to draw frora Social istic and Coramunistic principles their legitiraate conse quences : they said and say, " Two and two make four." In Germany Socialism was more in its doctrinal and theoretical stage. It had not penetrated the masses through and through. The laboring classes, to whora the 376 LIFE OF LEO XIII. contrast between wealth and extreme and wide-spread poverty was brought home by daily suffering, were ripe for a violent solution of the labor question ; but the doctrines of Socialism had not yet got entire hold of the schools or been adopted by the educated. The landed aristocracy formed a great barrier in Germany to the spread and prac tice of these theories. Still Socialism was daily gaining ground. Nor had the secret societies obtained among the conser vative and practical Teutonic races the same success which they had achieved among the Neo-Latin peoples. Both the Socialists and the Occult Force had had no little share in preparing the public raind in Germany for that national unity which arose out of the war of 1870-71. But they had far more to do with creating and fostering the public opinion which represented the Papacy and the Catholic religion, as such, as the natural and irreconcilable enemies of the new German Erapire. Fast following on the first persecuting laws enacted against the Prussian Catholics came Socialistic conspiracies, disturbances, and attempts against the life of the sovereign. These were attributed to Cathohcs, whether maliciously or not we do not stop to ask ; and Catholics, therefore, were raade a theme for fiercer denunciation by the Kulturkampf organs. The highest officials, however, could not long ac quiesce in such belief. The reports of their own police had convinced them of the contrary. Very soon both the emperor and the prince chancellor had good reason to know that the great danger for the em pire they had built up, for religion and social order in Ger raany, came from the doctrines and plots of Socialism — not from the intrigues of the Jesuits, the doctrines or practices of Cathohcisra, or from the fancied hostility of the Holy See. It was impossible that this second great doctrinal pro nouncement should not have made a deep impression on the aged emperor and his far-seeing rainister. The masterly exposition of Socialistic error and its EFFECTS OP THE ENCYCLICAL IN GERMANY. ^ill effects on the entire framework of society could be verified in every detail b}- what was dail}- happening all o\-cr France and in parts of Switzerland, and by what was attempted in Germany and Belgium. The genesis and histor}- of Socialistic error as given in the encyclical was warraly, angrily even, discussed- and dis puted. But the great fact asserted by the Pope, that with the spread of the sixteenth-centur}- doctrines the su pernatural, and w-ith it Christ Hiraself, was gradually ban ished from the university schools of non-Catholic countries, could not be denied. Germany had experience enough of it. Then it was that the life to corae began to be laughed at and left out of men's calculations. There ^was nothing for them but the present — no heaven, no hell. Nothing was left to the disinherited classes in society to compensate them for the misery and wretchedness of their present lot ; nothing to make thera satisfied with their poverty and their ill-requited toil ; no force to withhold the passions, excited and maddened by Socialism, from rushing on the wealthy and the great, and gratifying both their revenge and their greed. The great doctrine on the origin of social power and social authority was still more striking as formulated in the Pontiff's terse and classic Latin. With the Socialists and all who adopt the raodern theory of civil society God is nothing and He has nothing to do with the state. The people alone are the source of power ; they corarait it to whom they please. The depositaries of their power are responsible to the people only for the discharge of their trust; beyond the people we need not, cannot go. So that, after all, social raan in obeying state authority is only obey ing his own freely chosen representatives ; in obeying the law he was only submitting to be bound by the act of his own will. To statesraen, magistrates, rulers — to all raen who seek to place social order on a solid and sacred basis — the sol emn utterances of the encyclical were like the second pro mulgation of the law on which rest the foundations of the moral world. S7^ LIPE OP LEO XIIL That they raade a deep impression where the Pope wished and hoped to raake it we shall not say at present. One by one all the errors of Socialisra are confuted and the opposite doctrines clearly defined and admirably for- raulated. The parallel which certain writers would fain establish between the huraanitarian doctrines of Socialism and those of the Gospel is shown to be illusory. The equality of all men, as set forth in the latter, is founded not only on the sarae huraan nature derived frora the same parentage, but from the sarae sublirae supernatural destiny in the life to come. The inequality which exists among men living in society arises frora nature and its Author, just as from Him comes in the raagistrate the right to rule, and in the subject the duty to obey. Power — right and legitiraate power in the social body — is from God. Human society is, like the angelic, a hierar chical gradation of orders subordinated one to the other in beautiful harraony. So is it in the Church. Touching with a rapid and raasterly hand on the use of power, which should ever be fatherly, like that of God Him self, and directed solely to the good of the subject, the Pope shows how Socialistic error saps the foundation of domestic society by destroying the sanctity and unity of marriage, by denying the authority of parents. Property, its division and its rights, is next described. On February 28, 1879, Leo XIII. held a consistory, in which he had the great consolation of detailing to the Sacred College the pains he had taken to restore union in the Eastern churches, and the success which had attend ed his efforts. Monsignor Aboliona, a man in every way devoted to the Holy See, had been duly elected to the metropolitan chair of Babylon ; the palhum had been sent him by Rorae. So a brighter light, was breaking on the Christians of the East. But a little raore than a raonth later, on March 25, the A COUNCIL OF EDUCATION FOR ROME. 379 Pope, in another letter to the cardinal vicar, denounces once more the systematic warfare which the Piedmontese government in Rome, in conjunction with the anti-Catholic sects favored by the municipality, are carrying on against the religious education of youth. In order to counteract the labors of this propaganda the Holy Father institutes a Council of Education for Rome, composed of prelates and noblemen, whose duty it will be to watch carefully over all priraary schools and to estab lish new ones wherever needed. The Pope has given gene rous aid to this enterprise, and exhorts all good Christians to use a like generosity. Thus the first year of Leo XIII.'s Pontificate had been fruitful in unexpected and raost blessed results. Not all unexpected, however ; for those who were well acquaiHted with the raan and with the qualities which he had displayed as a diploraat, an adrainistrator, and a teacher of men, had confidently hoped that he, if any one could, would bring about peace where peace had so far appeared impossible. CHAPTER XXIII. LEO XIII. AND THE EASTERN PEOPLES. I. I. Slavonic Races : Centenary of Sts. Cyril and Methodius.— 2. The Greeks and the College of St. Athanasius.— 3. The Syrians. — A,. The Chaldeans and Armenians. e( 'ARNEST as was the desire felt by Leo XIII. to re concile with the Roman Church the various commu nions in the East which the schisra of Photius had wrested frora the centre of Catholic unity, or to enlighten on their errors the followers of the ancient heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches, there seemed, in the beginning of his Pontificate, but slight prospects of such reconciliation. We shall see, however, how far his endeavors were blessed with success. At present, to judge aright of his praiseworthy labors in this regard, it will be instructive to glance successively at each of the empires to which they extended, and to esti mate the difficulties which the' Holy See had to contend with. I. LEO XIIL AND THE* SLAVONIC RACES. During the four last years of the reign of Pius IX. we find the Emperor Alexander II. , who risked so much of re putation and popularity among his own upper classes by eraancipating the serfs, displaying, on the contrary, toward his Catholic subjects a rigor which it is hard to find words to qualify. In the Parliamentary papers laid on the table of the British House of Commons in April, 1877, a series of per secutions are disclosed, the proceedings of which would seem incredible in themselves, and impossible in any 380 CR UEL PERSECUTIONS OF CA THO LLCS IN R USSL I. 381 Christian land in this nineteenth century, were it not that they are vouched for by the British officials resident in Russia. In the province of Chelm, for instance, the governraent used all manner of threats and seduction to induce the clergy to bring over their flocks into the Russian or Ortho dox communion. Even where a few priests yielded to fear and thus prostituted their sacred rainistry, the people were too firmly attached to their ancestral faith to follow their erring shepherds. All this strange systera of pression and propagandism only filled the country with strife and vio lence.* This w-as in 1871. In 1873 and 1874 the provinces of Siedlce and Lublin were the theatre of a like proselytizing carapaign. The people revolted against the violent raethods used to coerce them into apostasy, and drew on theraselves the rigors of military law, all this "resulting in bloodshed, loss of life, and the most barbarous treatraent inflicted on the pea sants." The British consuLgeneral who furnishes these details gives one instance which will enable the reader to judge of this novel process of "converting" souls. At a place in the district of Minciewicz the priest had apostatized, and the people would not permit him to enter the church and officiate for them. He appealed to the military autho rities, who sent a body of troops to enforce obedience on the part of the people. These filled the church and sur rounded it to preserve it from desecration. They were hem med in by the railitary, and were offered the choice "of signing a declaration accepting the priest, and on their refu sal fifty blows with the nagaika (Cossack whip) were given to every adult man, twenty-five to every woman, and ten to every child, irrespective of age or sex — one woman, who was more vehement than the rest, receiving as much as a hun- dred."t Finding that bodily punishment could not avail to shake * Letter of Lieutenant-Colonel Mansfield, Consul-General in Poland, to Lord Granville. t Letter of Colonel Mansfield, Jan. 29, 1874. 382 LIPE OF LEO XIII. the constancy of these heroic peasants, the authorities tried what a system of fines would do. But the people suffered everything to be taken frora thera while remaining true to conscience. In the summer of 1874 Alexander II. visited Warsaw in person. The Uniates, or Catholic United Greeks, attempt ed to approach him with a petition begging him to examine into their grievances. He would not permit them to ap proach him. From that moment, says Colonel Mansfield, " the massacres " increased in ferocity, and the Cossacks re ceived orders to " hunt down " the Uniates and to destroy their crops, all of which were ruthlessly carried out. In 1875 the official press in St. Petersburg triumphantly announced that forty-five parishes, containing fifty thousand persons and twenty-six priests, had abjured the Roman com munion and joined the Russian official church. We re meraber the sensation such an announcement produced in Great Britain and the United States. The thing was be lieved till the Blue Book published a despatch of Lord Augustus Loftus, the British ambassador in St. Petersburg, dated January 29, 1875. His recital of the truth was a hide ous revelation : " The passing over," he says, " of these fifty thousand United Greeks has been effected by various raeans, in which physical maltreatment has formed a not inconsiderable ele ment. . . . The details of the different degrees of compul sion in the various villages would take too much space to relate, but I cite as a specimen what I heard from a gen tleman, of whose veracity I have no reason to doubt, of what took place in a village on his property. The peasants were assembled and beaten by the Cossacks until the mili tary surgeon stated that raore would endanger life. They were then driven, through a half-frozen river up to their waists, into the parish church, through files of soldiers, and there their naraes were entered into the petition as above, and passed out at an opposite door, the peasants all the time crying out : You may call us Orthodox, but we remain m the faith of our fathers!' ADVANCES MADE BY THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 383 Is this not the heroisra of the early raartyrs ? In the government of Lublin the authorities registered 250,000 persons as " converted " by similar raethods. This went on all through 1875. But in January, 1876, Colonel Mansfield reports that the " converts " repudiated the idea of having changed their religion, steadily refusing the ser vices of any priests but their ow-n, theraselves baptizing their own babes, burying their dead, and declining to enter the Russian churches. In New York and elsewhere in the United States we cannot have forgotten the harrowing narratives of sorae of these victims of a cruel and unchristian zeal who had suc ceeded in escaping from Siberia. There, they said, whole districts were peopled by the unhappy but most honorable exiles, laymen and priests, w-hose only crirae was their un shaken fidelity to God and country. For we must not over look this fact, that antipathy of race entered more into this persecution than antagonism of creed. Pius IX., in his last years, had not ceased to protest and remonstrate against these atrocious persecutions. They had, in 1845, ^vhen the Emperor Nicholas visited Rome, formed the subject of a stirring personal appeal, if not a denouncement of divine judgment, from Gregory XVI. to the omnipotent ruler of Russia.* The emperor issued, pale, disturbed, terrified, from the Pope's presence. Pius IX. failed not to warn the successor of Nicholas of the terrible wrongs inflicted by him on the Catholics of Poland, as- well as on those of the other provinces of the Russian Empire. Did the fall of the temporal power em bolden the autocrat to continue his cruel methods of effect ing religious unity in his dominions ? We do not like to think so. But in 1877, in the first days of June, the Russian representative in Rome laid be fore His Holiness, together with the compliraents and con gratulations of his imperial master, the outlines of a plan for adjusting all differences between the Vatican and St. Peters- * See Cardinal Wiseman, " Recollections of the Four Last Popes." 384 LIPE OP LEO XIII. burg. This was when it was politic to conciliate the Ca tholics of the Turkish Erapire diiring the terrible Turko- Russian war of 1877. At any rate, on July 26 Cardinal Siraeoni, Secretary of State, placed in the hands of Prince Ourousoff, the Russian charg6 d'affaires, an official state- raent on the grievances of the Holy See with regard to the Imperial government, as well as an enumeration of the spe cial remedies deraanded. This was addressed to the czar. Two weeks followed, and no acknowledgment of having re ceived the memoir was sent to the cardinal. Then it was returned most insultingly. Cardinal Simeoni, in a letter dated August 19, resented with dignity and proper spirit this proceeding, without a single precedent in the history of diploraatic intercourse. The Holy Father dismissed Prince Ourousoff without granting him a farewell audience. Of course all this did not turn away the Cossack whip frora the shoulders of the poor Uniates or close up the road to Siberia for Russian Catholics. Leo XIII. on his accession endeavored to restore friend ly relations with the Russian court as well as with the Ger man. In 1880 a favorable opportunity presented itself to the Holy Father of reaching the heart of the czar. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the latter's accession to the throne was celebrated with great rejoicings in St. Peters burg, and the Pope sent his congratulations through the in ternuncio in Vienna. This was so well received that later, on April 12, the Holy Father was encouraged to write the following letter to Alexander himself: " Sire : All the prosperity which, through our cardinal pro-nuncio in Vienna, we wished your Imperial Majesty on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of your acces sion to the throne, we now wish anew in this letter, praying frora our heart that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords may fulfil our prayers. " We cannot, however, forbear to profit by this oppor tunity to appeal to your Majesty, beseeching you to bestow your thoughts and attention on the cruel condition of the Catholics belonging to your vast empire. Their state fills LETTER TO ALFX.IXDFR II 3S5 us with unceasing pain and anxict}-. The deep zeal which moves us, in the discharge of our office of Supreme Pastor of the Church, to provide for the spiritual needs of these faithful Catholics, should, it seems to us, impel }-our Ma jesty, in the midst of so many political revolutions, of so many convulsions produced by greed}- human passions, to grant to the Catholic Church such liberty as w-ould assured ly create peace, beget fidelit}-, and bind to your person the trusting hearts of }our subjects. "Your Majesty's sense of justice and right moves us to hope that we can both bring about an accord entirely to our mutual satisfaction. For your Majesty cannot be ignorant of the fact that the Catholic religion deems it her duty everywhere to spread the spirit of peace and to labor to preserve the tranquillit}- of kingdoms and peoples. " Trusting, therefore, that our wishes in this regard shall be happily fulfilled, we meanwhile pray with our whole heart Almighty God to keep you long safe from all ill, to inspire you with salutary counsels, and to unite you to us in perfect charity." The letter has a prophetic significance in view of the tragic death of Alexander, which startled the entire civil ized world ere another twelvemonth had elapsed. That the Sovereign Pontiff's w-ords, so different from the empty expressions in which sovereigns exchange compliments, did strike the emperor, is attested by the fact that two of his sons, the Archdukes Sergius and Paul, were sent to Rome before the end of the year, and were instrumental in re opening friendly intercourse between the Vatican and St. Petersburg. The author met these princes by chance in Siena as well as in Rome, and conceived, as did most people, the hope that the cordial understanding of which the Pope spoke in his letter would be brought about be tween the two sovereigns. But death came to mar this prospect. And the persecution still continues to rage. Leo XIIL, while addressing hiraself directly to sove reigns and the statesmen who administer great empires, did not neglect another means of sta}'ing the progress of 386 LIFE OF LEO XIII. persecution, of preparing an antidote to wide-spread error, and of sowing broadcast the seeds of truth — that is, public opinion. No statesman in modern times has formed a truer estimate of its power, or seen more clearly how its influ ence should be cultivated and used for the best interests of religion and society. His encyclicals, allocutions, and other public utterances are all calculated and directed toward the one immediate purpose of enlightening the public raind and preparing a public opinion favorable to the changes he wishes to effect. Thus his letter to the Emperor Alexander II. might have remained unknown to all save the comparatively few who possess and read the "Acta" of Leo XIII.'s Pontificate. But the Pope had even a grander object in view than the mitigating of the hard lot of the Russian Catholics: he wished to raise the flag of reunion with the Church of Rome in the sight of all these Eastern churches so sadly fallen away from their ancient freedom and their ancient splendor. To the Slavonic populations within the Russian, Aus- tro-Hungarian, and Turkish Empires the names of the great brother-saints, Cyril and Methodius, are deservedly dear. They were for the Slavs what Peter and Paul were to the Romans, Patrick to the Irish, Augustine to the Eng lish, and Boniface to the Germans. But Cyril and Me thodius lived, labored, died in the communion of the Holy See, and in strict subordination to its authority. Indeed, Cyril died in Rome and was buried there. He it was who invented the alphabet still in use among the Slavs. He is, therefore, in a manner, the parent of Sla vonic civilization. The two brother-apostles had frora the ninth century been revered as saints both by the Roraan and the Eastern churches. The return of their centenary in 1880 offered Leo XIII. one of those happy opportunities for winning still more the affection and respect ofthe wide-spread nationalities who worship the meraory of Sts. Cyril and Methodius as their apostles. The Pope wrote an encycli- CENTENARY OP THE APOSTLES OP THE SLAVS. 387 cal letter, extending to the universal Church the duty of honoring the two saints by a solemn office. Dated on September 23, this raagnificent enc}-clical, in every way worthy of the head and heart of Leo XIIL, recounts the reasons which induce hira to pay such honor to these illus trious brothers. There is a rapid and pregnant biographical sketch, such as Leo XIII. knows how to fill up, like the frame of a miniature painting, with the raost exquisite details, finished with a raaster's hand. He insists on the life long relations of the two apostles with the Holy See, and recites the unceasing solicitude of the Roraan Pontiffs, after the death of these holy raen, to raaintain the Slavs in the Catholic faith and to proraote their material pros perity as w-ell. " Wherefore," the encyclical says, " we thank God for giving us an opportunity to do a grateful thing to the peoples of Slavonic race, and to help contribute to their welfare with a zeal in no whit less than that shown by our predecessors. Our sole aira, our only wish, is to use every exertion to provide these peoples with a greater number of bishops and priests. These will confirm them in the pro fession of the true faith, in dutiful obedience to the true Church of Christ, and daily experience will teach them more and more what blessings accrue from Catholic insti tutions to families as well as to all classes in society. These Slavonic churches are to us an object of especial care. There is nothing we desire more ardently than to promote their welfare and prosperity, and to bind thera to us by the ties of perpetual concord, which to thera raeans a bond of perpetual safety." * The Slavs responded with great enthusiasm to the en cyclical of the Holy Father. The centenary was every where celebrated with great solemnity. A numerous pil grimage of representative raen of Slavonic origin frora Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Servia, and other Turkish de- * " Acta Leonis XIIL," September 23, 1880. 388 LIFE OF LEO XUL pendencies came to Rome to express to Leo XIII. the gratitude of the various nationalities. It was one of those spectacles which consoled the heart of the Pontiff for the bitter cup held to his lips by Italians. It should have opened the eyes of the purblind Piedmontese government to the absurdity of maintaining in Rome a rival sovereignty with a power which extended its spiritual sway and its in comparable influence beyond the Peninsula, beyond the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, to every Eastern as to every Western land. Ah through the reraaining raonths of 1880 and during 1 88 1 letters frora bishops and addresses came continually to the Vatican, thanking the Pope for his encyclical and the honor done to the Slavs in the persons of their revered apostles. From Boheraia, from Croatia, these expressions of gratitude were particularly significant. Replying to Car dinal Prince Schwarzenberg, Archbishop of Prague, and the bishops of Bohemia, on July 14, 1881, the Pope gives vent to his joy. The Slavonic pilgrimage, and all that he sees and hears about the syraptoras of reunion and religious re vival, fill hira with gratitude to God and with well-founded hopes for the great future of these peoples. He will omit nothing which can help to promote among them the divine honor. The bishops must labor strenuously to promote education, to proraote in particular that of the clergy, who are to lead the van of all true progress. On July 5 of that same year Leo XIII. gave a specimen of his practical love for the Slavs and his enlightened inte rest in their spiritual welfare by doing for Bosnia and Herze govina what had been done for England and Scotland — establishing, namely, a regular hierarchy in these regions. He rejoices, he says in the bull of institution, that he has been enabled to accomplish what so many of his predeces sors had in vain yearned to do.* The movement toward reconciliation and reunion has gone on ever since, and is not likely to die out, in spite of * Bull Ex hac augusta, July 5, 1881. SAINTS CYRIL AND METHODIUS 389 the opposition, secret or open, of the powerful schismatic Greek churches. It was the Roraan Church which sanctioned the raission and the acts of the two brother-apostles ; it was to Rorae that they referred all they did for blessing and approval. They came thither in 869, Cyril bringing with him the remains of St. Clement, Pope and martyr, from the Crimea, whither he had been sent to labor in the mines and had suffered death for Christ. Cyril, wasted by his apostolic labors, died there and w-as buried with the most solemn pomp in the church of St. Clement, by the side of the mart}-r-Pope — that " Clement w-hose narae is written in the book of life." Methodius returned to labor alone among his Slavs, bearing now in his heart a double charity and heroism, bent on running his race and winning the crown to which his loved companion had attained. He perforraed prodigies of labor raore astonishing than any miracle, dying in iMoravia, which he had converted and civilized, in September, 880. To these two the Slavonic races owe not only the pos session of the Gospel truth, but their literature and the very characters they use down to the present day. Well may they reverence their names ! Leo XIIL, therefore, did a wise and a politic thing in publishing his encyclical, and giving to this centenary cele bration the extraordinary soleranity which won the Slavo nic heart. But he did not confine this policy to that race alone among the Eastern peoples. IL THE EASTERN GREEKS, AND THE PEOPLES WHO CLING TO THE GREEK LITURGY OUTSIDE OF GREECE. Gregory XIIL, whose great raind first conceived the idea of founding the Congregation de Propaganda Fide and colleges for educating in Rome missionaries for all nations, began by founding on January 23, 1577, the Greek College of St. Athanasius, which was destined to bc, for all the 390 LIFE OP LEO XIIL nationalities who used the Greek language in their liturgy what the College of Propaganda became later for all na tions. This college prospered wonderfully and became a nur sery of great scholars and apostolic men. Leo XIII. conceived that it was not sufficient to guard the faith of the Slavonic races over whora Panslavism and the schismatical Greek Church seek to establish an exclu sive domination, but that the light of Catholic truth should be carried into the very strongholds of that same Greek Church itselL He therefore, frora the beginning of his Pontificate, be stowed the greatest attention on the Greek College. He reorganized its studies, enlarged and elevated their stan dard, selected the most illustrious Greek scholars to teach the students their native literature, and more especially to perfect them in rhetoric, in the most perfect art of the preacher. For classic Greek and all the other languages, ancient and modern, these young men frequent the classes of the Seminario Romano and other great schools which the present Pontiff has done so much to improve. Besides this, knowing how fondly the Greeks cling to their liturgy, the Pope has founded in the college two spe cial chairs — one for the teaching of ever}'thing pertaining to the history, theory, and practice of the Greek liturgy, and another for the teaching of ecclesiastical chant. Church music is a desideratura in the East, and Leo XIII. has raade up his mind that the young raen who go forth in future from the halls of St. Athanasius shall bring with them not only all the graces of accoraplished oratory for the pulpit, but a knowledge of the best Church rausic known in Rome. The growing fame of the Greek College attracted so raany pupils that the Pope, in spite of his limited means and the many calls upon his generosity, has just completed a new wing to the building, enabling it to face all the demands for roora raade on it. This was soleranly inaugurated and blessed on May 2, 1886, the feast of St. Athanasius, when the best musical THE GREEK AND OTTOMAi^' CATHOLICS. 3^! critics in Rome were equally surprised and charmed by the splendor of the morning and e\'cning ser\ices and the vocal performances of the students. Now think for a moment of the various countries frora which these young raen corae, and sa}- if it bc not a divine thought thus to bring together men born so widely asunder and often separated by national antipathies which a unity of liturgy is not sufficient to overcome without the aid of di vine charity. The former Greek colonies in Italy itself and the islands once belonging to her are not only permitted by the Holy See but obliged to celebrate the Greek liturgy. So there are students from Sicily, Calabria, Naples, Leghorn, Malta, and Corsica. Besides the.se Italo-Greeks there are the Hel lenes, or Greeks proper, the Roumanians, the Bulgarians, the sons of the vast Ruthenian branches, and the Melchites. There is a vicariate-apostolic in Greece. But there the Russian influence is all-powerful, and it is only by slow de grees that the old prejudices and antipathies cherished so fondly in the nineteenth century by a far-seeing but un scrupulous policy can be overcome, and a way made for the entrance of truth into rainds and hearts. IIL PEOPLES OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. Brief as has been the reign of Leo XIIL, his enlight ened zeal and prudent policy have already done as much to revive Christianity in the Turkish and Persian dominions as the insane ambition of the republican rulers of France has done to ruin its best interests in the far East. Let us gather from the lips of Leo XIII. himself what estimate he had formed of these venerable Eastern churches, and what measures he adopted to aid them in their straits and to build up araong thera the edifice of religion and civilization : " Everything pertaining to the Eastern churches," he says in the allocution of February 28, 1879, "because of the suprerae rainistry entrusted to us, we deem to be deserv ing of peculiar solicitude and zeal ; we, indeed, find it to have 392 LIFE OF LEO XIIL been so held by our predecessors in every century. For they knew the pristine pre-eminence of these countries, in which the Sun of Justice arose for mankind, as well as the glory of these ancient churches which produced men who were the shining lights of heavenly wisdom and wonderful holiness. " Wherefore, from the very beginning of our Pontificate, seeing the sad troubles to which the churches of the East were a prey, we endeavored to give what help we could to each one of them in its need. Finding a favorable oppor tunity for taking measures, through the ambassadors of the chief European sovereigns, to restore peace to the East, we employed every possible raeans to have full liberty publicly guaranteed and sanctioned for the exercise there of the Catholic religion. Having happily succeeded in this, it is now our firm purpose to take every pains to have the right thus guaranteed fully upheld in practice. . . . " We trust, on the other hand, that those who carry on the government of the Ottoman Empire shall easily under stand that it is their interest to grant in the fullest measure to the Catholics of their jurisdiction all that right and justice demand ; and this all the more readily that they have lately had splendid practical proofs of the loyalty of these Catho lics, of their devotion to the state, on both of which their eneraies endeavored to cast odious suspicions by calumnies that did them supreme injustice. "... We recall to your minds that last year the Church of Chaldea became widowed of her patriarch in the person of our venerable brother, Joseph Audo, whom Pius IX. had confirmed and instituted in that dignity on September ii, 1848. This prelate, ... in the last years of his hfe, carried away by the advice of evil counsellors, forgot his duty toward this Apostolic See. But, admonished by the apos tolic authority, he returned to his duty, gave evidence of his obedience to the Sovereign Pontiff, incurred and bore with Christian fortitude on that account many annoyances frora those of his nation, and on his death-bed, with his latest breath, expressed his sorrow for his fault, bore witness to his THE CHURCH IN CHALDEA AXD MES.'rOTAMlA. 393 love and devotion to the Chair of Peter and the \'icar of Christ, and left a great example of edification behind him. " After his death the bishops of the Chaldaic rite met in council at Alkosh, as the canons require, and in the usual form elected, on Jul}- 26 last past, Peter Elias Abolionan, Bishop of Gezir, to fill the office of patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans. . . ." The Sublime Porte was not one of the last powers to feel and to acknowledge the truth of Leo XIII.'s affirmation tJiat the Catholic Churcii is evcryzoJiere a mighty element of peace, order, security, unity, and stability to the nations and their rulers. It acknowledged that the successful efforts to bring about concord between the Holy See and the Eastern schismatics, or between the rival Christian denomi nations themselves, proved to be a great benefit bestowed upon the empire. The Sublime Porte confirmed the election of Monsignor Abolionan as patriarch of Babylon, and granted him the firman ratifying the Holy Father's approbation of his elec tion. This was an official acknowledgment of the patriarch as the head of his nation — the Chaldeans — and a solemn guarantee of full religious liberty to himself and his people. It was a great and peaceful triuraph won by Leo XIII. This was followed almost immediately by the healing of the deplorable schism which had taken place in another diocese of Mesopotamia, Zachan. The bishop who had in truded himself into the see, and his followers among the clergy, the monks, and the laity, submitted in all humility to the patriarch and asked for absolution frora the Holy See. " From all this," the Holy Father says in his allocution of May 12, "we conceive well-founded hope of seeing the baneful schism which has so long afflicted the Catholics of Mesopotamia entirely extinguished." A new joy was added to these, as the Pontiff expresses It, by the appeasement of the long and bloody feud between the Jacobite Nestorians of Syria and the Catholics of the Syrian rite. There had been a brief misunderstanding be tween the Syrian Catholic patriarch and the government. 394 LIFE OF Leo Xiii. and the Nestorians, under pretence of supporting the civil authority, had taken forcible possession of the Catholic churches, refusing, on any account, to give them up. The Holy Father, having, through his delegate in Constanti nople, obtained the ear of the Imperial government, had the question of right subraitted to the arbitration of the British and French ambassadors in that capital. The decision was in favor of the Catholics. But so judi cious and conciliatory was the conduct of the Catholic offi cials that a number of Jacobite families renounced their sect, and nurabers of others seemed disposed to follow their ex araple. A like happy terraination concluded the deplorable schisra which had taken place among the Armenians. These are very powerful in Constantinople, where their wealth ex ercises great influence. Among them, too, the definition of the dogma of the Pontifical Infahibility in 1870 had been taken advantage of by the evil-minded to stir up the jealousy of the govern ment against the Holy See, and to produce some such scan dalous and absurd division as that caused in Bavaria by Dollinger and the Old Catholics. But as in Germany, so in Turkey, the prejudices and misconceptions begotten by heated and one-sided theological discussions and by latent national jealousies and antipathies passed away, and people began to see that they had acted rashly and irrationally. The Armenian Archbishop of Diarbekir, Monsignor Bah- tiarian, and the Armenian Bishop of Cyprus, Gasparian, were both ambitious men, who thought that the stir made in Germany and all over Continental Europe by the dogma of Papal Infallibility offered them a favorable opportunity for advancing their own interests. They won over to their designs a number of secular priests and monks, and a large following araong the laity. One of these monks, Kiupehan, caused hiraself to be elected in a conventicle as civil patri arch of the Armenians, and Bahtiarian himself was therein chosen as religious patriarch or Catholicos of Cilicia. Now, Monsignor Anton}^ Hassun had been for many years the END OF THE ARMENIAN SCHlSM. 395 acknowledged patriarch and catholicos of the Armenians of Cilicia, the civil and religious head of the nation therefore. But as he, an old pupil of the Propaganda, humble, consci entious, devoted, and too well inforraed not to know the utter falsity of the charges raade against the Pope, remained firm in his attachraent to the Holy See, the governraent, deceived by Bahtiarian and Gasparian, was prevailed on to banish Monsignor Hassun frora Constantinople. Kiupelian was consecrated by the two schisraatical bish ops, and officially recognized by the governraent as civil pa triarch of the Armenians. But these refused to acknow ledge the division of authority, and would not obey Bahti arian as catholicos or the religious patriarch. Disgusted or threatened, the disappointed schismatic withdrew to the Armenian convent on Mount Lebanon. Meanwhile Monsignor Hassun was subjected to many in dignities, but his virtue and patience were proof against the most bitter trials. And so things went on among the Ar menians, the schism even spreading to Egypt, till the acces sion of Leo XIII. On March 10, 1879, Archbishop Kiupelian, urged by re morse, wrote to the vizier renouncing his episcopal and offi cial rank, expressing his sorrow at the wrong done to the Holy See and the lawful patriarch. He cast hiraself at the feet of the latter, who forthwith urged hira to go to Rorae and there seek forgiveness frora the Holy Father. Arriving in Rome at the beginning of April, he at once wrote to His Holiness. The Pope received hira with the greatest kindness, and allowed hira to retain the title and insignia of bishop, although the culprit had received thera so unworthily. But the Holy Father calculated the effect which this clemency would have in bringing back the other schisraa tics. He was not raistaken. On November 26 following Monsignor Gasparian came to cast himself at the feet of the Pope, and was received with a like tender charity. In the summer of 1880 the schismatic Armenian bishop at Cairo, Davidian, also returned to the fold, and at length Bahtiarian himself asked for absolution for his sin. 396 LIFE OF Leo xiii. In April, 1880, the Pope wrote to the sultan, Abdul Hamid, to thank him for his prompt readiness to recall and reinstate Monsignor Hassun. The latter was presented by the delegate, Monsignor Grasselli, and was received with ex treme pleasure by the sultan. Thus was this dangerous and wide-spread schism healed and a great triumph won by the conciliatory temper and wise clemency of Leo XIII. In the pubhc consistory of December 11, 1880, the Pope was happily inspired to reward the patriarch, Monsignor Hassun, by giving him the Roman purple. The first Ori ental ever created cardinal was the illustrious Greek scholar Bessarion, whora Eugenius IV. raised to the purple after the Council of Florence (1439-1442). So, after an interval of nearly four centuries and a half, the same distinction was granted to an Armenian. There was great rejoicing in Con stantinople. The sultan felt the proraotion as a personal compliment. Everything in his empire thus promised well for Catholicisra. But Leo XIIL, seeing how rauch could be done for Christianity through the Arraenian nation, placed in the very heart of Asia Minor, carried out at once, regardless of his own poverty, the noble idea of Gregory XIIL, who had decreed the foundation of a college for the Armenians in Rome, as he had for the Greeks, but was prevented by death from carrying out his purpose in this latter respect. On March i, 1 881, he issued the buU Benigna hominum parens Ecclesia, founding a special college for the Armeni ans. The bull is one of the raost beautiful and eloquent compositions which have come from the pen of Joachim Pecci. The college is now in full operation. But the Pontiff, two years before, had sent among the Armenians a colony of Jesuits to open a college there, and another of Christian Brothers to establish popular schools. Both are prosperous beyond the hopes of the founders. The Chaldeans were not neglected in this respect. The Holy Father sent to the patriarch, Monsignor AboUonan, colleges and se.mi.varies for the east. 397 a colony of learned Dominicans, who have now a flourish ing seminary at Mossoul, on the banks of tho Tigris, at the very seat of the ancient Babylonian power and civilization. To this seminary flock the Chaldean }'outh from e\'cr}' part of Mesopotamia. The Roman official journals, as this page is written, are full of the most cheering accounts from this new school, this other advanced post of Christianity and civilization, planted by Leo XIII. near the frontiers of the Persian Empire, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and in the birthplace of Heber, of Abrahara and Sarah. Note. — This is the proper place to mention one of the grandest pro jects of Leo XIIL — that, namely, of creating two great central schools, one in .\thens and the other in Constantinople. For that he needs and should obtain the generous support of the entire Catholic world. CHAPTER XXIV. LEO XIII. AND THE EASTERN PEOPLES. — II. PERSIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. y^L^HE Arraenian students of the Propaganda, like Car- \Ji/ dinal Hassun, were the men who since the sixteenth century had kept the faith alive araong their fellow-country men throughout the Turkish Empire. They were also anx ious to spread it among their Mussulman neighbors. But, even had this not been a most perilous kind of proselytism, it was not a very promising one in itself. The old Moslera populations away from the great cities are simple folk, but sincere and steady believers in Allah ; and in their conception Allah is the one, true, living God, the God of Abraham, whora all Christians adore. Of the extravagances or contradictions of the Koran or of its cora- raentators they know or care little or nothing. They are not to be raoved frora their ancestral faith by the ignorant and tepid Christians who are in their midst. It is only when these shall have been instructed and lifted up by their clergy to a higher intellectual and moral level that the ex amples of superior virtue first can impress these honest country-folk and open the way to instruction. I . The Emperor of Persia, Nasr-ed-Din Shah, is a raan of progress, liberal and large-minded. During his tour through Europe newspaper reporters were more eager to collect all the wretched gossip they could pick up here and there from hotel servants and valets about the royal travel ler's personal habits and peculiarities than to. obtain serious information about his raany great qualities. That he made up his mind to travel at all outside of his own dominions and in Christian countries, and that for the avowed purpose of observing what he saw and benefiting thereby his own people, proves that he is a man of no ordinary character. 393 toleration op the PERSIA. V RULERS. 399 He is sincerely desirous of improving in every way he can the condition of his country. But its central position on the Asiatic continent, and its remoteness frora the ordi nary highways of coramerce and ci\-ilization, render im provement a matter of great difficulty. The shah is quite awake to the arabitious designs of Russia, and so far he has had the skill to avoid a collision with that power. From his tour through Europe he has also brought back a great spirit of toleration toward Christians ; and this he has communicated to his three sons, who govern the erapire under him. The oldest of these. Prince Zel-el-Sultan, is governor of the central provinces, whose capital is Ispahan. He is not the presumptive heir to the throne, because his raother was of inferior rank. But he is a raan of rare intelligence. His confidant and counsellor is Baghi-Khan, rector of the Uni versity of Ispahan, a man of culture and exceedingly favor able to the Christians. Both the prince and hiraself first contracted a warra friendship for Father Arakelian, the su perior of the Arraenian Catholics, and afterwards with Fa ther Pascal, the local superior of the French Lazarists, to whose care the vicariate-apostolic of Persia is entrusted. Prince Zel-el-Sultan has show-n hiraself a kind protector to the Catholic raissionaries and their people. The third or youngest son. Prince Naib Sultaneh, is Minister of War and governor of the province of Teheran, with his residence in that city. He is no less tolerant and liberal, and has done rauch to protect and help the rais sionaries. The second son, who bears the title of Wali-Ahed, is the heir presumptive. He is the governor of the important frontier province of Azerbaijan, and is rather reserved and retiring, probably on account of the greater popularity of his two brothers. The delegate-apostolic in Persia is also a Lazarist, Mon signor Thomas, Archbishop of Adrianopolis, who was ap pointed by Leo XIII. in 1883. Things prospered so well 400 LIFE OF LEO XIII. with him, his brother-Lazarists, and the Catholic Armenian j community in Persia, thanks to the protection afforded themf^ by the shah and his sons, that the delegate reported most| favorably to the Holy See. Thereupon Leo XIIL, pursu*! ing his wonted wise policy, sent to the two princes the insi"-- ¦ nia of Grand Cross of the Order of Pius IX. This was an other stroke of good statesmanship, destined to secure Arch bishop Thomas and his brother Lazarists, who cultivate that field so successfully, a great increase of favor with the royal family and all persons in power. The presentation of the insignia of the Pontifical Order took place with the greatest solemnity at Teheran on the 2d and the 5th of March, 1886. Archbishop Thomas, the delegate, was unable, through ill-health and his distance from the capital, to perform the ceremony in person, but delegated one of his brother- missionaries. Rev. M. Domergue, to present the decorations in his stead. The tidings of the distinction bestowed on the two imperial princes by the Supreme Chief of the Catholic religion had created quite a stir among the people of Tehe ran. The princes themselves expressed their extreme grati fication, and were impatient to wear their new honors. So there was a great crowd at the palace on the 2d of March when the French ambassador, M. Souhaid, took Father Do mergue in his state carriage, escorted by a numerous com pany of armed attendants. The East is the country for ceremony, and everything here was done in the most stately form. The Prince Naib Sultaneh was in full dress and sur rounded by a splendid court. He received the decoration from the hand of Father Domergue, who made him a very happy speech, and at once placed the star on his breast, ex pressing his profound gratitude to the Holy Father, and promising to write himself to His Holiness. On the 5th Prince Zel-el-SuItan received the insignia with the same ceremony, and replied in a set speech. His august father, he said, had instructed hira to treat all his subjects justly without any distinction of creed. He had found the Catholics a hard-working, peaceful, law-abiding, 402 LIFE OP LEO XIII. and loyal people ; expressed his admiration for Father Pas cal, the superior of the mission in his province, and said that he was proud to wear the distinction sent him, would write to His Holiness to express his gratitude, and hoped some day to visit Rome and pay his homage in person to the Pope. These events are only forerunners of greater success.. Persia is destined to play a great part in the Eastern draraa, whose first acts are already passing beneath our eyes.. If Christian civilization — not the mere material civilization, but the culture of the mind, and the elevation of the heart to nobler virtues and nobler aims, and the refining of life and manners — could only prepare the people to receive the improvements in the mechanical and industrial arts made by Christian nations, and to guard against the defects and. dangers which we ourselves acknowledge and deplore, then ancient Iran raight take a proud place in Asia. 2. But Leo XIII.'s keen and practical judgment also- saw the necessity of establishing a friendly intercourse be tween the courts of Pekin and Tokio and the Vatican. He therefore resolved to place himself in direct personal rela tions with the two great emperors of the far East. On February i, 1885, Leo XIIL wrote to the Emperor of China for the purpose of warding off from the Christians of the Celestial Erapire the outbursts of popular wrath which had already produced bloodshed in more than one- city. ' The invasion of Tonquin by a French army, and the progress of that power in Cochin China, had excited the fiercest national hatred against all foreigners, and threat ened to cause everywhere an indiscriminate massacre of Christians. " We follow the example of our predecessors," the Pope- writes, " who have raore than once besought the protection of your powerful ancestors in favor of the European mission aries and their flocks. We are led to hope much from your Majesty in this, from the fact that, in spite of the breaking out of hostilities, your Majesty has given many evidences of kindly feeling toward Christians. We were informed that: LETTER TO THE EMPEROR OF CHINA. 403 from the beginning of the war you had given orders forbid ding all to trouble the Christians in any \\a}-, and not even to molest the French raissionaries. In that your Majesty has shown a spirit of justice and huraanity worthy of a great sovereign. We acknowledge this all the raore gladly that all the priests of European nationality who are in your Ma jesty's empire have been sent thither b}- the Roman Pontiffs, from whom they hold their mission, their office, their in structions, and all the spiritual authority the}- exercise. " These missionaries do not belong to any one single na tion ; Italy, Belgium, Holland, Spain, and Germany claim each a large number of raissionaries who labor in ten of the provinces of your Majesty's vast erapire. The priests of the Society of Jesus and of the Society of Foreign Missions who exercise their rainistry in the other provinces belong to divers nationalities. " This is the special characteristic of the Christian religion : it has not been founded for one people in particular, but for all ; and it receives thera all into the fellowship of a coraraon brotherly love, without any distinction of race or of country." The Pope then states clearly and briefly the great truth on which he insists so strongly and so unvaryingly in his letters to the eraperors of Europe as well as to those of Asia, in his communications with the republics of the New Worid as well as with those of the Old : " The labors of those who preach the Gospel are of the very greatest utility to states themselves. For they are en joined to abstain frora raeddling in mere political affairs, and to bestow all their zeal in preaching and cultivating among the people the wisdom of Christ. Now, the chief precepts of that wisdom are, to fear God and to have in all things a supreme reverence for justice. Hence it follows that we must be submissive to the raagistrates, obey the laws, honor the king, not through fear only, but for con science' sake. Than these virtues nothing can be more efficacious to keep the multitude within the bounds of duty and to secure the public safety." * •* " Acta," v. 10-12. 404 LIFE OF LEO XIII. The Holy Father then appeals to the emperor, askino- him whether the missionaries have not at all times been most exemplary in obeying the laws of the empire, as well as most efficient in procuring the public welfare. The action of the Holy Father in opening direct com munication with the Emperor of China has given rise to some untoward discussions in the French and Italian press. Catholic France, up to the present time, has deemed that both her interest and her national pride were involved in standing forth in China as the protector of the Catholic missions. All negotiations between the Holy See and the court of Pekin were carried on through the French ambas sador. That the Pope should himself write directly to the emperor was construed by some officious public journals as at least a slight on the government of the French Republic. Others went further and said that Prince Bismarck had urged the Holy Father to make himself in the East quite independent of the now worthless French protectorate. These discussions, and the national feelings to which they appeal, were most untimely and unfortunate. Happening just when Leo XIII. was bestowing on Prince Bismarck a high mark of pontifical gratitude at the happy conclusion of the raediation between Germany and Spain, and coinciding with the strong personal efforts of the German chancellor to end the Kulturkampf and bring about a perfect religious peace in Prussia, the sen.sitive national feeling in France was quick to take alarm, to accept false statements, and to resent anything like a concordant action in China of the Holy See and the German chancery. But the cloud which gathered, borne by the winds of misrepresentation, has vanished before the light of truth. The Pope is left free to follow in the East as well as in the West the promptings of his own well-directed genius. 3. The letter of Leo XIII. to the Emperor of Japan was an act of that same far-seeing policy. The Pope knew what deep roots the Catholic religion had left in Japan when Taico-Sama deluged the land with the blood of so many thousands of martyrs. It was found during the late perse- LETTER 10 THE EMPEROR OE JAPAN. 405 cutions among the Christians* that Catholicity had survix-ed in many places, although no priest could bc found to min ister to its professors. One of the \icars-apostolic officiallv states that the Catholics in his district number at least 25,- 000. In the Missionary Herald, the organ of the .-Vmerican Protestant Board of Foreign Missions, -f- is published a letter from Re\'. J. H. Pettee, of Okogama, entitled "A New Peril in Japan," and sounding a loud note of alarm about the manifest leaning of the Japanese nation toward Catholicism. The writer says there is a strong movement among local officials fa\'oring the acceptance of the Roman Catholic religion. The raost progressive secular paper in the king dom has openly advocated baptizing the emperor and a few of the nobles, in order that Japan may be considered a Christian nation. We give these signs of the times in Japan as observed and noted by an opponent of Catholicit}-, to enable the reader to appreciate some at least of the circumstances under which Leo XIII. wrote his letter of May 13, 1885, to the mikado. " Great as is the distance in space which separates us," the letter begins, " we ha\-e heard of all that your Majesty is accomplishing in order to increase the prosperity of your states. What your Majesty has done to improve the civil administration and to raise the level of public morality are not only evidences of your provident forethought, but most worthy of the commendation of all raen who are desirous of seeing nations make a true progress in prosperity and in thj interchange of all the best fruits of civilization. For it is gentleness and urbanity of manners which predispose peo ples to listen to the teachings of wisdom and to receive the light of truth. This is why we beseech your Majesty to ac cept with your great kindness the assurances we give you of our sincere affection. " Indeed, it is gratitude which prompts us to write to * See article " Missions (Catholic) '' in last edition of the American Cyclopitdia (.\ppleton's). t April, 18S6. 4o6 LIFE OF LEO XIIL your Majesty. The kindly interest which you may take in every one of the raissionaries and Christians in your wide erapire we shall take as shown to ourselves personally. We know frora their own testimony how gracious and kind your Majesty has been to them. " You could not, assuredly, do anything more in con formity with the principles of justice nor raore conducive to the welfare of your states. For you can hope to find in the Catholic religion no little help toward proraoting and secur ing their welfare. " For the foundation of all states is justice, and there is not one duty which derives from it that is not made obliga tory for Christians. " This is why all who are true Christians are not men in fluenced by the fear of punishment, but rather by the voice of conscience, in reverencing the majesty of the sovereign, in obeying the laws, in seeking to proraote only the public peace and honor. This also is the reason why we so ar dently desire that your Majesty should bestow on Christians the greatest possible measure of freedom, and that you should extend to their establishments your continued favor and protection." As Leo XIII. wrote to these great potentates of the raost ancient empires in the world, so wrote he to the king of the Shoa Gallas in Abyssinia, who, in the first years of the Pope's Pontificate, favored the missionaries among his people. Since then, and as we write, this prince's suzerain, the King of Abyssinia, has compelled him to adopt a differ ent policy. The English wars in Upper Egypt and the Ital ian expedition to Massowah have, not unreasonably, alarmed and irritated both Ab}-ssinians and Gallas. The expeditions of European powers, when undertaken from purely commer cial or ambitious motives, are not conducive to the interests of Christian civihzation. Italy has started on her new na tional career with the openly avowed purpose of doing with out God and of seeking none of the interests of religion. Even should the new kingdom last a century, we should be curious to peep into the future and know how many col- RELIGION CANNOT SAFELY BE IGNORED. 407 onies she may plant in this wa}- and how they are likely to prosper. Not so did France, and Portugal, and Spain, and England herself attempt to leave God and all religion out of their cal culations when they planted their flag and settled their colo nies along the shores of the Indian, the Pacific, and the At lantic oceans. Leo XIII.'s recommendation to nations and their rulers, both in their home and in their colonial policy, is that of the Master: " Seek ye first the kingdora of God and His justice, and all the rest shall be given to you over and above." CHAPTER XXV. LEO XIII. AND GREAT BRITAIN— RESTORATION OF THE SCOTCH HIERARCHY — SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES BE TWEEN THE BISHOPS AND REGULARS. UK 'HEN one reflects on the persecutions to which the Church has been subject in countries which were once the glory of the Christian name ; on the many restric tions the governments in these same countries place on the liberty of the bishops in governing their flocks, and on the very freedom of the Holy See in coramimicating with the bishops and exercising over the local churches the supreme jurisdiction essential to the pontifical office, it is not to be wondered that both, Leo XIII. and his predecessors looked with grateful affection to Great Britain and the United States, where so much of true liberty is allowed to the Church, to the Popes, and to the clergy of every rank. The establishment of a regular English hierarchy by Pius IX. gave, it is true, occasion for an outbreak of the old anti-Papal and anti-Catholic spirit. It was only a passing storm, however. Public opinion was soon enlightened on the real nature of this restoration, and people were ashamed of having been hurried along by the current of blind popular prejudice into expressing sentiments unjustified by truth or reason or religion, or into acts more blameworthy still. When the last mutterings of this sudden tempest had died away it was found that the Pope had committed no aggression on the constitutional prerogatives of the crown or the legislature, and that the cardinal-archbishop of West minster and his brother-bishops were the most devoted of subjects, an ornament to their country by their learning, their eloquence, and their virtues, and with their faithful flocks one of the strongest bulwarks of law, order, liberty, morality, and religion. 408 REVIVAL OF TIIE CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN. 4O9 And so from 1S50 to 1877 the Catholic Church in Eng land grew and prospered. Colleges, con\-cnts, monasteries, stately cathedrals, beautiful parochial churches with their schools, hospitals, orphan as}-lums, homes for the aged, pro tectories for the }-oung, and refuges for the fallen, sprang up with surprising rapidit}-. Ever}- one of the ncwl}- erected dioceses became a centre of extraordinary religious activity, and it was soon discovered e\'cn b}- the bitter opponents of Catholicism that the revival and the progress of the ancient faith of Alfred and Edward the Confessor, of St. Bede and St. Dunstan, boded nothing but good to the constitution which was the growth of the old Catholic ages, or to that spirit of manly liberty which had written Magna Charta with a Catholic pen, or to the progress of science and civilization of which Roger Bacon had been the prophet and Cardinal Wiseman was then the exponent. So, although in political life, in the parliamentary strug gles of the present century, English Catholics have never exercised or seemingly cared to exercise any controlling ac tion or influence. Catholic life all over the land, like a beauti ful and vigorous undergrowth in one of its own forests, was spreading and waxing strong, and rising steadil}- and reach ing upward to the air and the sunlight. God's appointed time would come for its full stature. In Scotland, too, that land which Scott's magic. pen has rendered classical the wide world over, the wild, beautiful, heroic land of St. Margaret and her husband, Malcolm Can- more, and their son, St. David, the old faith was also spread ing and growing. It had held its ground invincibly in more than one part of the ancient kingdom, as among the Mac- Donalds and the Frazers ; and although these clans, whose romantic history has never been written, were forced to mi grate to Nova Scotia, Prince Edward's Island, and Upper Canada, the remnants which clung to the native soil, like their own mountain pine and oak, were gerras reserved for the glorious revival now beginning. Other gerras, frora a kindred and well-tried stock within view of their southern and western shores, the storm-winds of misfortune had borne 41 0 LIFE OF LEO XIIL ' along the track once followed by Columbkille's bark, and they fell on the Caledonian shores, to take root there, and blossom, and bear fruit, also in God's good time. And time had been, long ages ago, when the apostles from green Erin were welcome on every inch of the soil of Great Britain, and when Britain's greatest and best, like Dunstan hiraself, were wont to repair to the schools of Erin. How hospitably they were received and entertained there St. Bede himself has attested. Religion and its chari ties, the knowledge of Christ and the civilization which sprang from it, drew the islands together and all hearts within them. Though the sea ran as now between thera, brotherly love bridged it over. Will the faith which the countrymen of Columbkille carry with them across the Channel, hidden, as it were, in the folds of their garments, not grow up on the land, in its length and breadth, as the promise of the coming age when that faith will unite all once more, as in the days of Bede and Dunstan, and the bitter, unnatural passions of to-day will have passed for ever, as passes the violent delirium of a fevered brain ? It surely is the hope of Leo XIII. It is the hope of every man and woman who loves Christ, and prays for a greater triumph for His Gospel than in the days of Con stantine. With what glad avidity Leo XIII. seized upon the op portunity offered him by the uncompleted work of Pius IX. to do for Scotland what the latter had done for Eng land — give her back her episcopal hierarchy ! One cannot help feeling, after weighing attentively the heartfelt expres sions which he uses both in the bull Ex Supremo Apostula- tus apice and in his first consistorial allocution, that the Pon tiff is drawn by a special affection toward these Western isles, from whose teeming bosom have gone forth the found ers of raighty empires beyond the seas — the founders as well ¦of that new and greater Christendora which is to compensate the Church for the decay of faith nearer home. This is a happy augury for Leo XIIL, that the first .solemn act of his Pontificate should be to build up again RESTORA TION'OF THE HIERARCHY IN SCOTLAND. 4 I I the ecclesiastical edifice at which St. Margaret and her royal husband had labored so raany ages before. " From the highest summit of the apostolic dignit}' " — so he begins — " to which, by no raerit of our own, but by the disposition of the Divine Goodness, we were lately raised, the Roman Pontiffs who preceded us were wont unceasingl}' to survey, as from the top of a raountain, every portion of the field of the Lord, so as to discover whatever was most needful to the actual condition, the beauty, and the sta- bihty of all the churches ; wherefore their first and princi pal solicitude was, in proportion to the aid given them from on high, either to erect episcopal sees all over the world or to recall to life such as had perished through the misfortunes of other times. For as it is the Holy Ghost who hath established bishops to rule the Church of God, therefore, as soon as the state of our holy religion in any ¦country permits the establishraent or the restoration there of episcopal government, it is proper that all the benefits which naturally flow from such a divinely constituted order of things should be at once conferred on that country. "Now, our predecessor of blessed memory, Pius IX., Tvhose death a few days ago we all still deplore, having noticed at the very beginning of his Pontificate the pro- :gress made by the Catholic missions in the prosperous king dom of England — a progress permitting the restoration of the regular form of Church government therein as it exists among other Catholic peoples — gave back to the English their regular episcopal hierarchy. . . . And not long there after, seeing that Holland and Brabant were in a condition to enjoy the same benefits, he delayed not to restore to them also their episcopal hierarchy. . . . " Passing over the re-establishment of the patriarchate of Jerusalem, all these restorations were evidently acts of wise forethought ; for their results, with God's blessing, fully cor responded to the expectations of the Holy See, for every body knows what benefit the Catholic Church in all these cases derived from the restoration of the episcopal hier archy. 4 I 2 LIPE OF LEO XIII. " It pained the loving heart of that good Pope that Scot land could not then share in the common benefit. And his fatherly pain was increased by the reflection that Catholi cism in former times had made such fruitful progress in Scotland. All who know Church history are aware that the light of the Gospel shone there at an early period. For, to pass over what tradition says of the apostolic missions sent in ancient tiraes to that kingdora, we read of St. Ninian having preached there at the close of the fourth century, after having, as the Venerable Bede testifies, obtained in Rome the gift of faith and the knowledge of its mysteries ; and of St. Palladius, a deacon of the Roman Church, who followed Ninian in the fifth century, both of them being consecrated bishops. Then there was the Abbot St. Co- lumba, who landed there in the sixth century, and built a monastery which was the parent of many others. " And although from the middle of the eighth to the eleventh century historical docuraents tell us almost nothing about the ecclesiastical condition of Scotland, still it is a tradition well remembered that many bishops lived there, though some of them had no fixed sees. But after the ac cession of Malcolm III. in 1057, at the instance of his queen, St. Margaret, he set about restoring and extending the Chris tian religion, which had suffered no little injury both frora the incursions of foreign nations* and from intestine politi cal revolutions. The remains, still extant, of church edifices, monasteries, and other religious structures bear splendid tes timony to the piety of the ancient Scots. " But, to come to what more especially relates to our subject, it is certain that in the fifteenth century the epis copal sees had so increased as to number thirteen in all — namely, St. Andrew's, Glasgow, Dunkeld, Aberdeen, Moray,, Brechen, Dunblane, Ross and Caithness, Candida Casa or Whithorn, Lismore, and Sodor or the Isles, and the Qr- cades — all of which were immediately subject to this Apos tolic See. It is also certain — a circumstance of which the *D;ines and Northmen. THE PONTIFF- S AFFECTION FOR SCOTLAND. 413 Scotch are justl}- proud — that the Roman Pontiffs took the kingdom of Scotland under their special protection and bestowed on these churches marks of peculiar fa\-(n-." The Pontiff then sketches the hierarchical changes in the Scottish churches down to the Reforraation, with the mea sures taken during the next three centuries to provide for the spiritual needs of the scattered and persecuted Catho lics. In 1877, during the Episcopal Jubilee of Pius IX., Bishop Strain, at the head of a distinguished band of Scotch Catholics, petitioned for the restoration of the hierarchy — a thing which the venerable Pope was raost anxious to grant. He committed to the Congregation of Propaganda the la bor of making the necessary inquiries, resolving to satisfy as soon as possible the pious wishes of his Scotch children. " But," says his successor, " while he was congratulating hira self on the speed}- accoraplishraent of a purpose long and fervently entertained, he was called by the Just Judge to his reward. "What our predecessor, therefore, was prevented by death frora doing, God, so plentiful in mercy and glorious in all His works, hath permitted us to do, in order that we should inaugurate by a happy beginning the Pontificate accepted with fear and trembling in these unhappy times. Wherefore, having inform.ed ourselves thoroughly of this im portant matter, we have gladly resolved to accomplish forth with what Pius IX. had already decreed. . . . "... After these preliminaries, of our own accord, with certain knowledge, and by the authority which we possess over the universal Church, to the greater glory of Almighty God and the exaltation of the Catholic faith, we constitute and decree that in the kingdom of Scotland the hierarchy of ordinary bishops be hereby recalled to life in accordance "With the prescriptions of the canons, these bishops to be named from their sees, which by this our constitution wc create and constitute into an ecclesiastical province. . . ." All through this raemorable document there are passages Jn which the Pontiff's affection for Scotland and his know- 414 LIFE OP LEO XIII. ledge of her religious glories in the past manifest them selves in glowing language. " Remerabering," he says, " the ihustrious memories left behind by the ancient Church of St. Andrew, and taking also into account the rank of this capital city* as well as other reasons, we cannot help calling forth, as it were from the tomb, this celebrated see, and raising it or restoring it to raetropolitan or archiepiscopal rank, adding to it the title of Edinburgh. ... As to the see of Glasgow, con sidering the antiquity of that city, its size and fame, and having especially before our mind the flourishing condition there of our holy religion, and that Innocent VIII. had be stowed upon it archiepiscopal privileges, we have deemed it most befitting to give to its bishop the archiepiscopal title- and insignia, as we do by these presents. . . . " We have no fear but that the new bishops, following in the footsteps of their predecessors, who have rendered by their own worth the name of the ancient Church of Scotland glorious, will labor with all their raight to make the Catholic name more glorious still in that country, and that the good of souls and the worship of God shall be promoted by all. possible means." The new hierarchy is still to remain subject to the foster ing care of the Congregation of Propaganda, to whom the bishops are bound regularly to report. " Let the bishops," he says further on, " be well assured that we shall ever aid them willingly with our apostolic authority, bestowing on them our assistance in all that re gards the proraotion of the divine honor and the spiritual welfare of their people. . . . And inasrauch as, in the pre sent circurastances, the faithful in Scotland are unable to provide sufficiently and becomingly for the support of their clergy and the needs of their respective churches, we cherish the hope that our beloved children, the Scotch Catholics, to whose most urgent solicitations we have yield ed readily in restoring their hierarchy, will continue to sup ply with even a more liberal generosity, by their alms and donations, the raeans by which the pastors we give themi THE SPIRIT OF ST. MARGARET ABROAD. 4 I 5 may provide for the restoration of the bishops' sees, the beauty of their churches and the splendor of divine wor ship, the maintenance of the clergy, the relief of the poor, and the other necessities of their Church. " And now, addressing our prayers to Him in whora it hath pleased God the Father, in the dispensation of the ful ness of tirae, to restore all things, we beseech ITim, wdio gave the beginning to this good work, to perfect the same, to confirm and strengthen it, and to grant to all those to whom it pertaineth to execute our present decrees the light and energy of divine grace, in order that this restoration of the episcopal hierarchy in the kingdom of Scotland raay redound to the prosperity of the Catholic religion. " To this end we also invoke near the Restorer of all things, our Lord Jesus Christ, the intercession of His raost holy Mother, of St. Joseph, his putative father, of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, of St. Andrew, whora Scotland especially honors, of the other saints, and in parti cular of Scotland's queen, St. Margaret, the glory and bul wark of her realra, that they raay all extend to this Church in her newness of life a loving and continued favor." * And so in the land of the Bruce, to which her sons and daughters cling with unspeakable fondness and pride, the ancient faith and worship of the generations led to battle by Bruce were reviving anew in all the promise of a glo rious springtide. Old prejudices are waning fast, and bro therly love — that true charity begotten of truth, of mutual knowledge and appreciation, and blessed of God and man —is fast bringing minds and hearts together. The spirit of St. Margaret is abroad. The Catholics of Scotland cannot yet rebuild or restore from their ruins the beautiful places of the ages of faith ; but other convents and monasteries, schools and colleges, with great institutions of charity and beneficence, are springing up and multiplying. The raonas- •tery-bell and the ancient chant of the Matins and Vesper office are heard in more than one romantic spot among these * " Acta,'- vol. i. pp. i-i5. 4 1 6 LIFE OP LEO XIII. hills and along loch and stream, so that, in the words of Leo XIII. in his first consistorial allocution, " the moun tains of Scotland are clothing themselves with peace for the people, and her hills are putting on righteousness." But the spirit which Margaret had brought with her from her native home on the Thames, that spirit tried and chastened by long suffering, is working powerfully all through her own paternal kingdora, like the vital warmth of sun and earth and atmosphere in May and June. What cannot be hoped of that land and that people when all will once raore be governed by that spirit ? Leo XIII. in 1881 found a fitting opportunity to place ¦on record his opinion of the Catholic England of the past, and the high hopes he entertained for the future of a tho rough revival of Catholicism, and of the mighty influence the Three Kingdoms and their vast colonial empire are des tined to exercise on the social and religious future of the "world. This opportunity arose from the peculiar relations in which in Great Britain the members and houses of the old Monastic Orders stood with regard to the newly restored hi erarchy. These orders, their members and houses, had been subject iramediately to the jurisdiction of the Holy See, and only indirectly subject to the ordinary jurisdiction of the bishops. The bishops themselves, ever since the days of Elizabeth down to the middle of the present century, had lived and labored in Great Britain as vicars-apostolic, imme diately dependent themselves on the Propaganda, and par taking of the extraordinary and exceptional conditions of a persecuted religion. The Religious Orders, the Benedictines and Jesuits in particular, had braved suffering and death in every form, and lived among their tried people as best they might dur ing the dark days which seemed to know no end while cen tury succeeded to century. They lived by twos, by threes at most, generally all alone, and wandering about from house to house when the persecution was at its height. Not be fore the present century did their residences, their schools. THE ENGLISH EPISCOP.ICY AND RELIGIOUS ORDERS. 4 I 7 their churches dare to show therasch'cs nbo\c the ground, like timid shoots fearful of the frost when the winter has been long and the spring is dela}cd. These madest houses and churches and schools of Bene dictine and Jesuit throughout the length and breadth of the land had been the sanctuaries and nurseries of the proscrib ed faith for the heroic generations, who were born and lived and died without seeing any ra}^ of hope brighten for thera the western sky as the}- w-ent down to the grave. Necessarily these temporar}- abodes of the Monastic Orders could not be subject to the ordinary prescriptions of canon law during the days of trial ; and when the trial ceased and the hierarch}- was restored, questions arose con cerning the Monastic Orders so situated, in their relations with the secular clergy and the bishops, now restored to the ordinary status, which it required the authority and all- seeing wisdom of the Holy See to settle once and for ever. This happened in 1880-81, w-hen a special committee of cardinals, aided by the most experienced jurists in Rome, examined the whole matter in all its bearings, submitted each point to be adjudicated upon to the Sovereign Pontiff, and enabled him to issue the constitution Romanos Ponti fices, which was at once accepted by all parties as God's own oracle. " That the Roman Pontiffs who have gone before us," the Pope says, " have cherished a fatherly love for the illus trious English nation we know from the records of history, and from the solid proofs enumerated by Pius IX., of happy memory, in his bull, Universalis Ecclesice, of September 29, 1850. As that bull restored the episcopal hierarchy in Eng land, he thereby crowned the measure of benefits conferred by the Holy See on that nation. For by this restoration of diocesan government that portion of Christ's fold already called to the wedding feast of the Lamb, and become a member of His mystic body, acquired a fuller and more stable possession of the truth and order through the rule and government of their bishops. . . . " The subsequent events wonderfully corresponded to 4 1 8 LIFE OF LEO XIII. thiswise design [of Pius IX.] ; for several provincial councils were celebrated, which passed salutary laws for the regula tion of diocesan matters ; the Catholic faith received there by daily increase, and raany persons distinguished for their rank and learning returned to the unity of the Church. The clergy were rauch increased in nuraber ; so was in creased the nuraber of religious houses, not only of those belonging to the Regular Orders, but of those belonging to raore recent institutes, and which rendered great services to religion and the state by educating the young and practis ing works of beneficence. Many pious lay sodalities were founded, new raissions were established, and a great num ber of churches "arose, splendid speciraens of architecture and magnificently decorated. Then numerous asylums were created for orphans, together with seminaries, colleges, and schools in which a raultitude of children and young people are trained to piety and the knowledge of letters. " The great raerit and praise of all this are due to the character of the people of Great Britain, which is one of in vincible constancy in misfortune, easily accessible to truth and to reason ; so that not undeservedly did TertuUian say of thera : Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo sub- jecta — ' The Britons raade their regions inaccessible to the Roraans, but subjected them to Christ.' * But what is mo.st to be praised in Great Britain is the unwearied vigilance of the bishops, the ready disposition to obey of the whole body of clergy, and their prompt and diligent activity." The points in controversy between the bishops and Reli gious Orders are then exposed, discussed, and decided with a fulness of detail, a clearness, a grasp of the principles and interests involved, and a spirit of raoderation, justice, and fatherly love, which made the sentence on every point most acceptable, as it was final. Few documents in the annals of the Roman .Pontificate are more creditable and raore deserving of a canonist's study than this constitution. * "Adversus Judseos,'' c. v. HAPPY SETTLE.MENT OF ALL DIEFICUI. PIES. 4 I 9 " Having thus solved the disputes laid before us," the Pope says in conclusion, " we trust that the care we havc be stowed in settling them shall avail not a little to promote the peace and increase of the Catholic religion in England. We have based our sentences carefull}- and scrupulously on the rule of justice and equit}-, and we entertain no fear but that the same diligent care and scrupulousness will guide the parties interested in carrying out our deci sions. Thus shall it happen that, guided by the authority and wisdom of the bishops, the members of the Religious Orders, who have deserved so well of the English missions, will continue to labor strenuously and cheerfully, and to reap therefrom the most abundant and happy fruits of salvation ; and that both bishops and religious (to use thf words of Gregory the Great to the bishops of England) zi'ith common . . . accord and united action, shall be unani mous in arrangitig together zvhat is to be done for Christ's glory, that tliey shall think aright, and that whatever they have thus thought out they shall carry into effect without differ ing from themselves. * The fatherly love of the bishops for their fellow-laborers, as well as the reciprocal respect of the clergy for their bishops, alike demand that such concord shall reign. Such concord is also required by the coraraon purpose of both— the salvation of souls, which they have to secure by united zeal and efforts. It is also required by the necessity of resisting those who are the enemies of the Catholic name. " Concord is a source of strength, and it enables even the weak to accomplish great things ; it is also a sign by which the true followers of Christ are known from those who only pretend to be so. To observe this concord we earnestly beseech all and every person concerned, asking thera with Paul to fulfil our joy, being of one raind, having the sarae charity, being of one accord, agreeing in sentiraent." f The fatherly exhortation fell upon docile ears and loving hearts. The constitution was issued on May 16. Ere the *Apud Bedam, " Hist. Ang.," ii. 29. \ " Acta," ii. 227 and following. 420 LIPE OP LEO XIIL. raonth had passed Cardinal Manning wrote to the Holy Father that he, for his part, cordially acquiesced in the de cision of the Holy See. So did the other prelates, and so did the venerable religious whose predecessors had lavished their sweat and their blood on the field they were culti vating. No weeds of discord or uncharitableness could take deep root there. CHAPTER XXVI. LEO XIII. AND IRELAND. "^^HE problera of Irish raisery, raisrule, and unrest was vi/ forced upon the attention of Leo XIII. frora the beginning of his Pontificate. As the Common Father of Catholic Christendom, the teacher, guide, and judge of all in things spiritual — in all things, indeed, which touch the conscience or regard the performance of duty in the politi cal as well as the purely religious order — the Pope had to form his judgment on the right and reason there was in the persistent claims of Ireland for justice. Leo XIII. is not one incapable of grasping the enormous power of the two great English-speaking peoples at the present time— those, namely, of the British Empire and of the great Republic of the United States. He had well con sidered the fact that, although the great majority of Eng lish-speaking folk are not Catholics, they have nevertheless preserved in their home-hfe and their whole conduct a deep- seated religious sense. This pervades all their institutions- pervades, in very truth, the whole framework of society among them hke the animating principle. This religious spirit, inherited from so raany generations, is — and the Pon tiff knows it well — one of the most precious germs of the Christian life which it is hoped will reign araong the civil ized nations of the coraing era. In the United States there is, in the relations between the Catholic millions, the Federal government, and the Protestant majority, no existing cause of dissatisfaction or discontent.* The Catholic religion and its institutions ex ist side by side with other denominations on the solid * The only element of religious strife and political danger in the con federation is Mormonism. Sooner or later this sect, like negro slavery, will come under the arbitrament of the sword. 421 42 2 LIPE OP LEO XIII. ground of the common law, protected in its free growth and development by the common raagistrate and the liberty- loving spirit of the people. There are no raore devoted citi zens of the Union than the Catholics, of every race, who thrive and prosper beneath the Constitution. In the British Erapire, where the large-rainded Pope de sires to see the same union of all creeds and races as the coraraon bond of national strength, no chronic injustice or oppression weakens any one portion of the great colonial possessions in which an English speaking population pre- dorainates. The one cause of division, of discontent, of weakness, lies in the very heart of the Three Kingdoms theraselves, which are the seat of imperial sway. Could the Irish be appeased ? Could the two islands be ever bound together in a political, a social, a moral union as strong as that which holds the State of New York welded to that of Pennsylvania as two integral portions of the great Republic ? This could only be on a twofold condition — that Eng land should undo the wrong perpetuated by more than seven centuries of misrule, and do for Ireland what simple justice and coraraon sense deraand: treat her as her dear est self-interest demands she should treat Devonshire or Wales or Yorkshire ; have one common law for Irishman and Englishman ; compel the landlords of Ulster and Munster and Connaught to have as rauch care of the pro ductiveness of the soil, and the health and welfare of the tillers, as the landlords of the English counties have ever shown for their estates, their farraers and farm-laborers. Let the development of every resource — agricultural, mineral, industrial, coraraercial — which Ireland possesses be as great an object of English statesmen's solicitude as are those of Great Britain. If England persists in doing quite the contrary, then is it manifest that she does not treat the " sister island " as if it were an integral, essential portion of the empire properly so-called— that is, the Three Kingdoras. Where, then, is the real union between the two kingdoms ? THE CONDITIONS OF A TRUE UNION. 423 This, then, is the first condition required, that the legal bond connecting the two countries should mean the same measure of justice dealt out equally to both, and the same careful and kindly economy in developing the resources and promoting all the best interests of each without par tiality or distinction. The other condition raust be to appease the feuds of race and religion so industriously and systematically fos tered in England against the Irish Catholic, in Ireland among the English colon}-, whom the British government and British public opinion persist in regarding and acknow ledging as the only " Irish nation." The concession to Ireland of the measure of self-gov ernment granted to Canada, and enjoyed by Ireland a cen tury ago, would satisfy the clairas of political justice, and, if accompanied by the liberty to cherish their horae indus tries and commerce, it would also have the effect of putting an end to the degrading poverty, the misery, as well as the misgovernment, which are the inveterate sores of that un happy country. With the contentment arising from Home Rule, and the prosperity certain to follow it, would slowly but surely come the breaking down of the barriers which a bad land system, together with the bitter passions of race and religion, had created between the Protestant minority and the great ma.ss of their Catholic fellow-citizens. In this double appeasement Leo XIIL, like all true states men not born and inte-rested partisans of landlord misrule, like all impartial and enlightened men, saw the only raeans of cementing a strong, lasting, real union between the two isl ands and the two peoples. This union, founded on justice and mutual regard, would — so the civilized wotld thinks — make England all-powerful in her island horae, and enable her to cultivate peacefully and surely, in every portion of her vast colonial empire, the best fruits of Christian civilization and material prosperity. Thus, while the reign of well-ordered liberty, justice, and religion enabled the United States and the Canadian con federacy to make a whole continent populous, prosperous. 424 Life of leo xiii. and happy, the enjoyment of the same blessings would keep Great Britain and Ireland the great conservative force in Europe, while revolution, irreligion, and anarchism were undermining and engulfing the old order of things on the Continent. Anxious to see this long-desired appeasement of the just discontent of Ireland brought about and the power of Eng land thereby increased for good, the Pope was startled, in 1879, to hear once more the periodical cry of famine issue from the Green Isle; and with the fearful distress which such a cry is founded on, the rumors and fears of agrarian or revolutionary violence crossed the Continent to Rome. It would be a miracle indeed if, in a country where the great mass of the rural population, the tillers of the soil, had been for centuries reduced by the blind antagonism of race and religion, and by the inconceivable unthrift, neglect, and hard-heartedness of the majority of the landlords, to depend for subsistence on a single tuber, the potato, and to live in hovels in which the landlords would not keep their dogs — if rack-renting, and starvation, and eviction aroused a perishing people to resistance and such acts of retaliation as their un armed condition allowed. In every country and among every people known to history, oppression, spoliation, the pitiless greed of the wealthy and the powerful, have driven, and must ever drive, the oppressed and starving into secret associations and dark conspiracies organized against the oppressor. In Ireland there has been no exception to this rule. There, too, rack-renting, eviction, starvation, and the sys tematic denial of all redress have ever driven the unhappy people to seek the only raeans of resistance and of redress within their reach — in the secret societies. From the de spair begotten of the extreraity of distress sprang Fenian- isra and the Invincibles and the Dynaraiters. To agrarian violence, the dark deeds and threats of the societies, a drastic Coercion Act was deemed the only remedy. This, instead of reaching the root of the disorder, only attempt ed to quell the syraptoras. It was like cauterizing with IRELAND IN THE AUTUMN OP 1879. 425 red-hot irons a deep wound when the poison was raging in the blood and throwing its victim into spasms he could not control. To be just wc are bound to say that the great states man who is at this moment * prime minister of England, and who then was also the head of the government, did prepare in 1880 a deeper and more efficacious remedy in the shape of a Land Act. This act, "in itself as well as in the designs of its author a ra.agnificent boon far surpass ing in importance an}-thing ever bestowed on Ireland by an English Parliament, would have been hailed with rap ture and gratitude by the Irish people had it not been heralded by the most odious Coercion Act known in the dark annals of Irish misery. Before insulting the nation with this atrocious measure the prime minister did not stop to ask the Irish bishops and the political leaders of Ireland whether or not the horrible crimes committed in Dublin or elsew-here were the legitimate offspring of the teachings of the forraer or of the principles of the latter. Both prelates, priests, and politicians would have answered that these deeds of blood were only the natural conse quences of a hatred and a despair begotten by an oppres sion to which there had been, so far, no let-up." \ What was needed at that moment in Ireland itself to prevent the organization and growth of these secret socie ties, to keep the people out of them, and to repress their deeds of violence and blood, was a cordial union of the bishops among themselves and with their priests, and a thorough understanding with the political leaders who pos sessed the confidence of the nation. Unhappily, in 1880 and the four following years no such union existed or ap peared probable. We are now describing the social and political condition of Ireland as it would have raet the eyes of Leo XIII. had * March, 1886. + "The Cause of Ireland pleaded before the Civilized World," P. F. Collier, New York, 1886. It is still problematic whether the Phoenix Park ' murderers were not suborned by the Dublin Castle officials. 426 LIFE OP LEO XIIL he visited the island in the auturan of 1879, when the cry of starvation and the fearful reality appalled the country and startled the world. We have said that the failure of the crops and the utter irapossibility of paying rents where no rent had been pro duced by the land did not prevent the proprietors from ex acting it, and, where it was not and could not be paid, turn ing the tenants out on the roadside and levelling their cot tages before their eyes. It was a cruel thing to do. Then arose the cry : " Keep your grip on the land ! " and the Irish Land League sprang into existence. It stood between the landlord and the tenant, demand ing of the former that he should allow the tiller of the soil to live upon it and by it, co-operating with the latter in raaking the land productive, and allowing him such a share of the fruits of his husbandry as should make life worth living for. It stood between the rack-renter and his unfor tunate and helpless tenant, between the evicter with his crowbar-brigade and the cottage in which the tenant and his fathers before him were born. Irishmen must have means, room, and liberty to live, to labor, and to prosper on a soil which God made fertile, but which man's impro vidence and cruelty had raade unproductive and barren. Such was the Land League, soon to be suppressed, only to arise anew and more powerful in the National League and its outgrowth, the Irish Parliamentary Party. One phenoraenon struck sagacious observers from the very beginning of the faraine of 1879, f™"^ ^^''^ ^''^*- ^P' pearance of the Land League, and the National League which succeeded it — that wherever its branches existed and were patronized by the bishop and his priests, there no agrarian crimes were heard of, no secret-society clubs could subsist. Wherever, on the contrary, as in Dublin, as in parts of Munster and Connaught, the bishop would not tolerate the existence and interference of the League, or permit his priests to keep thereby touch and control of his people, there the secret societies had it all their own way, and out- rag-e and murder were committed. THE LAND LEAGUE AND THE NA TIONAL LEAGUE. 427 It thus became a fact of experience, an undeniable truth of observation, that to keep the people frora violent resist ance to oppressive laws, frora acts of bloody retaliation on rack-renting landlords and their agents, from all illegal and reprehensible deeds in a word, it was necessary that both the clergy and the political leaders should stand by the peo ple, advise, restrain, and support them in the advocacy of their just claims. The National party in Ireland — and by that I raean four millions at least out of the five who compose its present population — needed organization. Clergy and people had the same aspirations, the same airas, and put forward one identical claim for justice ; but they lacked what peoples on the Continent of Europe possessed. In every country where revolution has upset the old order of things and established a new, the change, whether for good or for evil, has been effected by organization. That enabled the secret societies to use the government and arms of Piedmont, in Italy, to change the political, social, and religious condi tions of the Peninsula. That enables the same dread Oc cult Force to level, piece by piece, the entire framework of society in France. That gave the seventeen raillions of German Catholics the strength to baffle and to withstand the most anti-Catholic and destructive legislation of the Kulturkampf. This want of organization is the secret of Poland's cease less and bootless struggles for freedora and the restoration of her nationality. Up to the suraraer of 1885 this, with regard, at least, to the furtherance of the national cause, was the fatal defect of the Irish hierarchy and inferior clergy. Now they are morally a unit, and as such they constitute the main ele ment of strength in the present national moveraent. But with the Land League, the National League, and the Par liamentary party the people and their political leaders found out the secret, the power, and the success of a per fect and compact organization. Before this salutary twofold union of the clergy among 428 LIPE OF LEO XIIL themselves and with the people and the Parliamentary party had been happily consuraraated, the recurrence of agrarian outrages and deeds of blood in several parts of Ireland had given the bishops much concern and had deeply pained Leo XIII. Of his opinion and sentiments in regard to the Irish people and the justice of their claims we have very full and satisfactory evidence in the two letters addressed by hira to the Irish hierarchy on August I, 1882, and January 1, 1883, respectively. " The kindly affection," he says in the former, " which we cherish toward Irishmen, and which seems to increase with their present sufferings, forces us to follow the course of events in your island with the deep concern of a fatherly heart. From their consideration, however, we derive more of anxiety than of comfort, seeing that the condition of the people is not what we wish it to be, one of peace and prosperity. " There still remain many sources of grievance ; conflict ing party passions incite many persons to violent courses ; some even have stained themselves with fearful murders, as if a nation's welfare could be procured by dishonor and crime ! " This state of things is to you as well as to us a cause of serious alarm, as we had evidence of ere now, and as we have just noticed by the resolutions adopted in your meet ing at Dublin. Fearful, as you were, for the salvation of your people, you have clearly shown them what they have to refrain frora in the present critical conjuncture and in the very raidst of the national struggle. " In this you have discharged the duty imposed alike by your episcopal office and your love of country. At no time do a people raore need the advice of their bishops than when, carried away by some powerful passion, they see before thera deceptive prospects of bettering their con dition. It is when impelled to commit what is criminal and disgraceful that the raultitude need the voice and the hand of the bishop to keep them back frora doing wrong. LETTER OF LEO XIII. TO THE IRISH HIERARCHY. 429 and to recall thera by tiincl}- exhortation to raoderation and self-control. Most tiraely, therefore, was your advice to your people, reminding them of the Saviour's injunction, ' Seek ye first the kingdora of God and His justice.' For all Christians are therein commanded to keep their thoughts fixed, in their ordinary conduct as well as in their political acts, on the goal of their eternal salvation, and to hold all things subordinate to the fulfilraent of their duty to God. " If Irishmen will only keep to these rules of conduct they will be free to seek to rise frora the state of raisery into which they have fallen. They surely have a right to claim the lawful redress of their wrongs. For no one can maintain that Irishmen cannot do what it is lawful for all other peoples to do. " Nevertheless even the public welfare raust be regu lated by the principles of honesty and righteousness. It is a matter for serious thought that the raost righteous cause is dishonored by being promoted by iaiquitous means. Justice is inconsistent not only with all violence, but especially so with any participation in the deeds of un lawful societies, which, under the fair pretext of righting wrong, bring all coraraunities to the verge of ruin. Just as our predecessors have taught that all right-rainded raen should carefully shun these dark associations, even so you have added your timely admonition to the same effect. " As, however, these sarae dangers may recur, it will be come your watchful care to renew these admonitions, be seeching all Irishmen by their reverence for the Catholic narae, and by their very love for their native land, to have nothing to do with these secret societies. These can in no wise help a nation to obtain redress for its grievances ; and, all too frequently, they madly impel those whom they have ensnared to commit crimes. " Irishmen take a just pride in being called Catholics — ¦ an appellation which, according to St. Augustine, raeans the guardians of all honor and uprightness, the followers of all equity and justice.* Let thera fulfil by their acts all that * " Liber de Vera Religione," n. 9. 430 LIFE OF LEO XIII. this word Catholic iraplies ; and let thera, while vindicating their own just rights, endeavor to be indeed all that their name suggests. Let them reraeraber that ' the highest lib erty consists in being free from all crime ' ; and let no one araong thera, so long as he lives, have to undergo lawful punishraent ' as a raurderer, or a thief, or a slanderer, or one who has coveted other people's property.'* "... We deem what you have decreed concerning your young priests to be proper and timely. For if ever there were circumstances when priests should be zeal ous and energetic in raaintaining public order amid popu lar excitement, such are the present circumstances with you. And just as the estimation in which each one is held by the public is the raeasure of his influence over others, even so should priests endeavor to win this public esteem by self respect, firraness, and teraperate word and deed. They should do nothing that prudence could condemn, nothing tj^at can fan the flame of party strife. . . . " In this way, and by following such rules of conduct, we do believe that Ireland shall yet attain to the prosper ity which she seeks, and that, too, without wronging any one. As we have already declared to you, we trust still that the government will conclude to grant satisfaction to the just claims of Irishmen. This we are led to believe from their acquaintance with the true state of things and from their statesmanlike wisdom ; for there can be no ques tion that on the safety of Ireland depends the tranquillity of the whole erapire. " Meanwhile, sustained by this hope, we shall lose no opportunity of helping the Irish people by our advice, pouring forth to God for them prayers filled with the warmest zeal and love, beseeching God to look down with kindness on a nation made illustrious by the practice of so many virtues, to appease the present storm of political pas sion, and to reward thera at length with peace and pros perity." Such were the noble words of faitherly love and advice * " Acta," iii. 129-133. SECOND LETTER OF THE TOPE. 431 sent to Ireland at a time when superhuman efforts were needed on the part of the religious guides, as well as on that of the political leaders, to prc\ent a people driven to despair from having recourse to the most violent and hurt ful measures. There is the outspoken acknowledgment of the justice of the nation's claims and of their constitutional right to seek redress by legal means. Not in vain was the strong appeal raade by the Pope to Irishmen's pride in being called " Catholics," and in the prayer that the}- would fulfil in their conduct the meaning of the word. Still the agitation continued, the working of Coercion Acts only serving to irritate and inflame where the united efforts of all men of order, of all wdio loved Ireland truly, should have been used to soothe the angry passions of the masses. In the autumn of 1882 the difficulties in the path of the bishops seemed to multiply, and again they had recourse to the Sovereign Pontiff for light and guidance (Octo ber 4). " Your letter," he says in reply,* " is a new proof of your respect and affection, as it is an evidence of the grati tude you and they feel toward us for our concern in the welfare of Ireland, and for the counsels given in our letter of August I last past. . . . " We cannot help congratulating you ... on the zeal displayed in calraing the existing agitation. . . . We also congratulate these children of the Church, who have lis tened so obediently to your admonitions, and who, endur ing with Christian fortitude the sufferings of adversity, knew how to keep their sense of wrong within the bounds imposed by duty and religion. " Still, although Irish Catholics continue to give splen did proofs of their zeal for religion and of obedience to the Supreme Pastor, the condition of public affairs requires that they should bear in raind the rules of conduct which our affectionate solicitude for thera induced us to lay down for * " Acta," iii. 432 LIFE OE LEO XIIL their direction. The secret societies, as we have learned with pain during these last months, always persist in put ting their hope in the commission of crime, in kindling into fury popular passions, in seeking for the national grievances remedies worse than the grievances theraselves, and in pursu ing a path which will lead to ruin instead of to prosperity. " It is, therefore, iraperative that you inculcate deeply in the rainds of your beloved people, as we have already said, that there is but one rule for what is right and for what is useful ; that the just cause of their country must be kept separate frora the airas, the plots, the deeds of criminal associations ; that it is both right and lawful for all who suffer wrong to seek redress by all rightful means, but that it is neither right nor lawful to have recourse to crime for re dress ; that Divine Providence enables the just to reap at last a joyful harvest from their patient waiting and their virtuous deeds, whereas the evil-doers, having run their dark course to no purpose, incur the severe condemna tion of both God and raan. " While we remind you of all these truths, impelled to do. so by our ardent desire to secure some solace, quiet, and prosperity to Ireland, we are also filled with confidence that you, acting in concert and bound together by brother ly love, -will continue to bestow your best care in prevent ing your faithful people from having anything to do with men who, carried away by their own passions, think they are doing their country service when they commit the worst crimes, and who, by urging others to like wickedness, bring sharae and dishonor on the cause of the people." It was worthy of the great heart of the Pontiff, tried as he then was by raany sorrows, and burdened by an intol erable load of care, to utter his sentiments regarding Ire land with such solemn eraphasis and such fatherly tender ness, while the struggle in Ireland was growing in intensity, and every effort to coerce only increased tenfold the power of resistance, and intensified in the same measure the hatred of laws, law-givers, and law-courts, which to the people meant only the administration of injustice. DR. WALSH'S ELECTION TO THE SEE OF DUBLIN. 433 No doubt the words of Leo XIIL, repeated and com mended from every pulpit in Ireland, went far to assuage the pubhc resentment at the passing and enforcement of the "Crimes Act," and still further to prevent raany from joining the dark societies which always spring from na tional misery and thrive on national discord. The Land League was suppressed and its members im prisoned by the hundred ; but this repression only left the secret societies a free field to work, and murders and out rages increased apace. The prison-doors were opened by the government, and it becarae at once apparent that the Land League, instead of being a iource of agitation, out rage, and crirae, w-as the only t ffective barrier against them. Then arose the National League, which grew and grew^ until it counted araong its raerabers or its fellow-workers the whole body of the clergy, nine-tenths of the Catholic laity, and not a few of the raost enlightened and- influential among Protestant clergymen and laymen. An incident occurred soon after this which chilled for the moment the warra feeling of gratitude and veneration- felt in Ireland and araong Irishraen everywhere for the- Holy Father. We allude to the faraous Propaganda cir cular. But the see of Dublin becoraing vacant in Febru ary, 1885, by the death of Cardinal McCabe, the Sove reign Pontiff reserved to himself to confirra the choice made of Very Rev. Dr. Walsh, President of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, to succeed to the deceased cardinal. The election of this distinguished man was in itself re markable, as indicating among the clergy of the metropolis an almost unanimous impulse to join the national move ment, and thus reverse the policy followed by the two last archbishops. The intrigues, authorized or unauthorized, which thereafter occurred, to have the nomination of Dr. Walsh set aside by Rome, proved ineffectual. The Irish hierarchy had been suraraoned to Rome before the death of Cardinal McCabe. They repaired thither in May. The Sovereign Pontiff had, therefore, araple opportunity to as- 434 LIFE OF LEO XIIL certain the wishes of the Irish episcopate on the .subject of this iraportant election, and to be raade acquainted with the true significance of the national moveraent. In June Dr. Walsh's noraination was confirmed. Thenceforward this prelate was both the organ of his brother-bishops in all public and naJ:ional matters and the spokesman of his fellow-countryraen. Frora that moment, too, there was unity of thought, purpose, and action be tween the clergy and the Parliaraentary party. The passing cloud which had in the Propaganda circular for a moment darkened and chilled the Irish Catholic heart was now forgotten, and Leo XIII. became to Ireland and her sons the Lumen in Coelo of their own St. Malachy. In dealing with the British cabinet the Pope, while con sidering the interests of Catholic subjects in Great Britain and in Ireland, as well as throughout the colonies, had also to have a regard for the feelings of the Irish race both in side and outside the British dominions. As the settled gloom on the material prospects of the Emerald Isle deepened with every decade that passed, leaving the Irish agriculturist less of resources and hope, and Irish labor no remunerative field or market within the compass of the Irish seas, the best and most religious men in the nation found increasing difficulty in restraining the outbursts of mingled despair and righteous wrath arising from wrongs easy of redress, but to which the government only applied homoeopathic doses of relief, coupled with in- lolerable coercion. English statesmanship. Orange fanaticism, and hatred of race cried aloud : Let them starve or emigrate ! What tcould the religious guides or the wise political leaders of a istarving and oppressed people say or do to prevent an armed uprising, which would have justified the accusations and the demands of the exterminators ? And what could the fatherly heart and the unpurchasable justice 6f the Roraan Pontiff do to save the sufferers, to inspire the mis governing with a sense of equity and humanity; to refuse to the oppressor a sanction of any of his schemes for re- POPE LEO'S SYMPATHY WITH IRELAND. 435 dressing the wrong, but what, in the preceding pages, as we can judge from his own letter, he has done ? He has set the seal of his sanction on the justice and righteousness of Irish clairas for self-government ; he has recommended to the nation and its leaders, churchraen and laymen, obedience to the laws, peaceful and constitu tional methods, and he has expressed his hope and uttered his prayer that justice may be done to Ireland. CHAPTER XXVII. FUNERAL OF PIUS IX. — SITUATION OF THE POPE IN ROME. "3^^ HE summer of 1881 in Rome was rendered sadly \^^ raemorable by an incident of which the civilized world heard with equal astonishraent and indignation. This was the savage riot got up by the anti-clerical clubs of Rome on the occasion of the translation of the remains of Pius IX. from their temporary resting-place in St. Peter's to his own chosen burial-place in the basilica of San Lo renzo outside the walls of Rorae. As Leo XIII. states in his narrative, the government and the municipal authorities had been duly inforraed of the intended removal. That they deliberately appointed an insufficient military guard for the funeral procession, knowing that it would be at tacked, is now a matter of which no statesman in Europe doubts. That they were glad to see the lifeless remains of the man they had persecuted, despoiled, and hated with an intensity proportionate to the greatness of the wrong they did hira, outraged in death, who will gainsay ? It is a pity to strip the allocution which Leo XIIL de livered on August 4 following of its own native diction. His pen was inspired by a righteous anger at the inhuman outrage thus coraraitted in the city of the Popes agamst one who had been beloved by the Catholic world as Pope had never been before. But let us listen to his soleran recital of occurrences : "Pius IX., as you know. Venerable Brothers, gave in structions that he should be buried in the basilica of San Lorenzo outside the waUs. Wherefore, the time having corae for the execution of his last will in this regard, the authorities charged with guarding the public peace were 43« OUTRAGES AT THE FUNERAL OF PIUS IX. 437 informed, and it was resolved to take the reraains away from the Vatican basilica in the silence of the night, at the time when all is wont to be raost quiet. It was also de termined that the funeral procession should be, not what the dignity of the pontifical rank required or was deraanded by the ritual of the Church, but what the present state of the city perraitted to be carried out. " But the tidings having spread all over the city, the Roman people, not forgetful of the benefits conferred by the great Pontiff, as well as his virtues, showed spontaneously that they intended to give a last testimony of their regard and love for their Coraraon Parent. This surely was only a mark of gratitude and piety worthy of the Roman people's dignity and religious feeling, all the raore so as they pur posed doing nothing raore than to follow the procession decorously, or to show themselves reverently and in large numbers wheresoever it -passed. " On the appointed day and hour the funeral train left the Vatican, amid a great multitude filling the square and the adjoining streets. There was a large body of pious men around the funeral car ; a still greater nuraber followed it. These, reciting the prayers becoming the occasion, had no thought of uttering a word or a sound offensive to others or calculated to incite in any way to disorder. But from the very beginning of the raarch a well-known band of bad men set about disturbing the performance of the solemn office by unseemly cries. Then, as their nurabers and audacity increased, so they went on increasing in their efforts to create turault and terror; they uttered the most atrocious blasphemies, hailed with hissing and insults the most respectable persons. The funeral cort6ge was heraraed in by crowds of angry raen, whose looks and voices threat ened them at every step, while again and again they at tacked the procession with volleys of stones or with blows. " Worse than all, what no savages would have done, they did not even spare the remains of the holy Pope. They loaded his name with opprobrious epithets, again and again hurled a shower of stones at the hearse, crying LIFE OP LEO XIII. out repeatedly that the unburied body should beicast forth, , .;,,¦• " This shameful scene lasted all through the long route, during the space of two hours. ,, ¦ u,. " If the last extreraity of outrage was not reached^it is due to the self-restraint of those who, subjected to all kinds of violence and insult, preferred rather to bear everything patiently than to suffer that worse things should happen during the discharge of so sacred a duty. " These facts, known to all and attested by the public records, cannot be denied by those interested in doiiig so, all their efforts to the contrary notwithstanding. Spread abroad by public report, they have everywhere, filled Cath olic hearts with grief, excited the spontaneous indignation of all raen who still have a regard for the name of humanr ity. From all parts we daily receive letters expressing the execration of the writers for the -foul sharae of the deed and its atrocious savagery. " But to ourselves above all others this serious and crim inal outrage has been a source of equal concern and anx iety. : Our duty impels us to guard the dignity of the Pom tificate and to defend the meraory of our predecessors^; we, therefore, in your presence denounce and deplore this out rage, and east the blame on those to whom it belongs,-; who failed to defend against the rage pf impious men the sa cred rights of religion and the freedom of the" citizens. From what has occurred the Catholic world can see: how little security there is for us in Rome. " It was before a matter of notoriety that our situation was for many reasons one of intolerable suffering; i The facts which have just happened have made more evident still that, if the present condition of things be bad enough, what we have to expect in the future must betstih worseji " If the remains of Pius IX. could not be borneithrough the city without giving occasion to shameful disorders and violent rioting, who will guarantee that the same criminal violence would not break forth should we appear! in the streets in a manner becoming our station — especially if a M ANOINTS DISINGENUOUS STATEMENTS. 4,39 pretext were taken frora our having, as in duty bound, cen sured unjust laws passed in Rorae, or any other notorious act of public wrong-doing? Wherefore it becoraes raore and more a thing well understood that we can now only hve in Rome by reraaining a prisoner shut up in the palace of the Vatican. " Furthermore, if one only reads carefully the signs of the times and remembers that the secret societies have con spired to destroy Catholicism, one can reasonably affirm that the enemy is maturing still more pernicious designs against the Church and the Sovereign Pontiff, as well as against the ancestral faith of the Italian people." Signor Mancini, then Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Depretis cabinet, felt called upon to write to the represen tatives of his government at the various courts. Not one fair-minded person on either side of the Atlantic believed his statement, bungling, blundering, and palpably untruth ful as it was. He and the men whose spokesman he was flattered theraselves that they held undisputed possession of Rome, and could, any raoraent they pleased, turn the Pope out of the Vatican. Even we in Araerica believed that European diplomacy, speaking in the name of all the Great Powers, had for ever set the seal of their approbation on the usurpation of the Papal States and the occupation of Rome. But Signor Mancini and Prirae Minister Depretis knew right well, in August, 1881, and reraerabered with unspeakable bitterness, that at the Congress of Berlin, on the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish war, the proposal of Count Corti, the Italian plenipotentiary, to obtain then and there a soleran and final sanction of the " facts accora plished "in Italy and in Rome by Victor Eraraanuel and the revolution, was indignantly repelled by Prince Bismarck and the other merabers of the Congress. So the facts accomplished have not been soleranly recog nized and sanctioned by the only court in the civilized world to which it appertains to do so. And as the years pass on the chances are continually lessened for obtaining such a sanction. 44° LIFE OF LEO XIII. • The day will surely corae in Rome when the memory of Pius IX. will be honored by a solemn pageant, a proces sion through the streets of Rorae, from the Vatican to San Lorenzo, of representatives of every Catholic country under the sun. It is impossible that the Popes, the Common Parents of all humanity, should not have their own again, and be mas ters in that Rome where, after the downfall of the Roman Erapire and the last invasion of the barbarians, they estab lished the focus of that new, that glorious Christian civiliza tion which their raissionaries and their authority extended to every continent and every people. CHAPTER XXVIII. LEO XIII. AND THE UNITED STATES. ^^HE first official act of Leo XIIL* in 1884 was the \y issuing of the bull Rei Catholicce incrementum, con vening at Baltimore, in the November following, a Plenary Council of the Church in the United States. The twelve archbishops had been suraraoned by the Sovereign Pontiff to meet in Rome in the preceding November (1883), there to receive from himself and the Congregation of the Propa ganda the necessary instructions concerning the new mat ters to be discussed, and the perfecting in every way of Church organization and discipline within the limits of the Republic. As the venerable Cardinal McCloskej^, Archbishop of New York, was prevented by ill-health frora being present in the council, the Holy Father appointed Archbishop Gib bons, of Baltimore, Apostolic Delegate and president of the council. The archbishops returned from Rome as soon as their consultations were ended, and began, in conjunc tion with their respective suffragans, the examination and discussion of the manifold important raatters to be decided in the approaching asserably. The labors of the prelates, the progress of religion among their flocks, and the prospect of the coraing council afforded Leo XIIL, araid his many cares, incessant labors, and bitter trials, a subject of unspeakable joy. He had presented to the archbishops before they left Rome a full- length portrait of himself, to be hung in the hall where they were to deliberate, so that, as he said to them, he might, in a manner, preside over this great national council —the greatest till then ever held in the New Worid. *".^cta," iv. I. 441 442 LIFE OF LEO XIII. It will not seera to the reader to be here out of place to review briefly the history and condition of the great West ern Republic and the marvellously rapid growth therein of Catholicity. ¦ ; While Joachim Vincent Pecci was still in his childhood, the Republic of the United States, though its independence had been formally recognized by Great Britain, had stiU to contend against the arrogant ill-will of this, power. British men-of-war had but little respect for the stars- an4 stfi^, asserting and mercilessly using, on every sea, the, right of searching American vessels, and the right as well to prQS? their crevys into the railitary service of England. , liewa? still, a child when an English fleet could ascend the Poto mac and destroy all that it pleased in the nascent capi,tal, of tlie Union, and when a British force coujd, possess it§elf, of Baltimore and hold the citizens absolutely at, its mercy.. , , During the two first decades of the century the governr raent of Washington had scarcely less cause to be diss^^i^- fjed with the rulers of France. It required no little rnpde- ratibn and no sraall degree of tact to prevent, a-rnpture,of intercourse between the two countries and : the breal^iijg out of open war. , ';;,,! But no external adversity could . long , or effectually check the development of a free people amid the junboun^- ed resoiirces of a country which embraced a great portip?} of a mighty continent, and was destined soon to extetid.its liraits frora the Atlantic to the. Pacific. For at tl)!S^,bQtJ;pm of that people's unparalleled prosperity lay a t^pfold fact — they were a religious people, among whora, though .divide,^ into various and hostile denorainations, there reigned, a; deep religious sense, pervading not only private life but influenc-, ing and regulating public life; and the;y .were a practical people, to, whora the fatherly Providence who h^d ia^ th^ rapther-cpuntry watched over the birth, and growth,,ofv ah theii- sopial institutions had also in the New Worl^l; in--, spired them with a deep love of the same, and^ thereby preserved them, from the very beginning of their separate national existence, frora the revolutionary changes which 443 444 LIFE OF LEO XIII. have been the bane of the Latin races on Continental Europe, as well as in their great colonies beyond the seas. Araericans theraselves, who wonder at the decadence which has fallen, like a blighting frost on a fruit-tree in the glory of its full bloora, on Spain, Portugal, and their colo nial erapires at their highest pitch of power and pride, have never accounted to theraselves for the difference between their own progressive prosperity and the rapidly progres sive decay of countries once so prosperous, the utter down fall of peoples once so raighty and so enterprising. The Anglo-Saxon race in the United States were given the conservative instincts which arose from their thorough knowledge of the laws and institutions which had been in the old country the outcome and expression of their whole social life — a life continued in the new, and there expressed by the same institutions, the sarae laws, the same forms of governraent, in so far as the altered circumstances of a new existence permitted their doing so. The laws, the raanner.s, customs, and governmental forras of a nation, frora its early birth to its adult state — if these are hallowed by religion and in conformity with the deep raoral sense of the people, as well as the circum stances of clirae and soil and geographical surroundings, are as rauch the creation of Nature — that is, of Him who raade this world for raankind, and who directs man in his progress and destiny — as the tree is the growth of the soil, and its fruit the joint product of earth and air and sun. God gave the Anglo-Saxon race at home, in what, in the fullest comprehensiveness of the word, we may call the British Constitution, this full embodiment of the character, the tendencies, the needs of the race ; He gave them with that an enlightened love and a deep attachment to these forras of their social life. In Araerica these forms, with the very important ex ception of the feudal proprietary system imported into England by the Normans, were planted and cherished by the early British colonists. It was an invasion of the most sacred constitutional rights of the people of the colonies by AMERICANS PRACTICAL AND CONSERVATIVE. 445 the British Parliament which led to the War of Indepen dence in 1775. The war, miscalled a revolution, was en tirely conservative. Americans fought to defend their rights, to preserve frora usurpation or infraction the dear est privileges of British freemen and citizens. The war over, and even frora their solemn Declaration of Indepen dence, their governmental forms, their laws, the entire framework of their social life, reraained what they had been. After the war the Constituent Asserably which drew up the present Constitution only tried to adjust the existing forms of State governments to the exigencies of a Confederation or Union, bound together by a strong federal bond, while leaving to the component States or sovereign coraraunities all the freedora competent with the existence, the unity, the undivided strength of one national life. The Union sacredly preserved everything compatible with the condition of the people in a country where no king, no lords, no landed aristocracy, no privileged classes, no feudalisra had ever existed. Thus all the precious ele ments which belonged to the public and private life of the race had been integrally transferred to its Araerican home ; all the best features of the English Constitution and government were sacredly preserved or raodified with a reverent hand in the political edifice which arose after the War of Independence. This inborn knowledge of Araeri can laws and institutions, this attachraent to the custoras and usages of the fireside and the forura, this deep-seated reverence for authority and order wedded to freedom, the American citizen and his sons take with them to every part of their native continent covered by the flag of the Union. Leo XIII. watched with deep interest the development of these conservative institutions. Every new territory organized from out the wilderness by these hardy and intel ligent pioneers was modelled on the time-honored forms of the State and Federal constitutions, every new State which asked for admission into the Union, was, he observed, care fully constructed on this sarae plan. This nation is a bee hive, made up of cells built symmetrically on one type, as 446 LIFE OF LEO XIlL if the workraen, like the bees, Were guided by an' instinct antecedent and superior to the mere agency of risflective intelligence. They have been directed, guided, protected by a Power which looked far beyond the present age and the'riefeds'of even a continent or an epoch. They have been inspired, impelled to build for all time, for the benefit, the instruction, the happiness, the elevation of the human race in the era which is now dawning, and in that other era which must come for the human family when the Eternal God will think it tirae to realize the ideal of His own Son, thfe God- Man, Christ. We have been, therefore, preserved in the United States frora the frightful convulsion of 1789, which, in destroying from its very foundations -the very structure of French society, unsettled in the rainds of men the very intellectual principles on which all truth depends, and deposited in men's hearts and men's lives the germs of a raoral licen tiousness commensurate with the libertinism of thought and judgment inculcated by Voltaire, Jean Jacques, and the French Encyclopaedia. How strange, but how striking, that while the French statesmen of 1789 were thus blowing up the social edifice reared by their fathers, and inoculating all the Latin na tions with the virus of their own political and rdigious madness, the assembled representatives of the American Union should have been laying simultaneously the founda tions of a system which preserved all that was best in the political life of their forefathers! French principles and practices have been a social plague spreading over a conti nent, depopulating cities and country places, and leaving behind desolation, ruins, death, or despair. The prin ciples and practices of the Araerican statesmen of 1789 were like the planting the Sacred Tree of India, which, spreading wide its branches and sending its shoots into a congenial and blessed soil, has covered the land from sea to sea -with coraraunities of law-abiding. God-fearing, and evet- progressive freemen. BIRTH OF THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY. 447 Of the original thirteen States which formed the Ameri can Union, Leo XIII. could see that one only, the State of Maryland, contained the nucleus of a Catholic popula tion. The colony which bore that name had been founded by Catholic emigrants, with a sraall admixture of Protes tants. This is not the place to speak of the perfect free dom of conscience proclairaed by Leonard Calvert and up held by the men w-ho shared his fortunes ; nor of the per secutions to which these Maryland settlers were afterwards subjected. In the Three Kingdoms at horae intolerance reigned supreme : it was one of those social epidemics which arise among a people, are fed by the ambient air and the qualities of soil and water around, preying equally upon men of all classes. The epidemic crossed the seas with the ships of the mother-country and the colonies, and raged along the Potomac, the Wycomico, and the Chesa peake, as along the shores of Narragansett and Massachu setts Bays. It lasted, with periodical outbreaks of fiercer violence, till the War of Independence, and the alliance with the France of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. acted like a thunder storm which clears the overclouded skies and purifies the atmosphere of mephitic vapors. Among the men who were foremost in devotion to the Union at its birth were the ill-treated Catholics of Mary land. Charles Carroll of CarroUton pledged the largest fortune to the cause of liberty ; his cousin, the Jesuit John Carroll, was Benjamin Franklin's associate in a fruitless embassy to the Catholic colonists of Canada, and he it was whom, at Washington's own request, Pius VI. appointed first Bishop of Baltimore. So began, in 1789-90, to spring up the Catholic hier archy, which was destined ere a century had elapsed to have its goodly branches in every State and Territory of the Union. As the very names of Carroll and of Baltimore * * Leonard Calvert, Lord Baltimore, took his title frora the then Parlia mentary borough of that name situated near Cape Clear Island, in south western Cork, destroyed by Moslem pirates about 1635, and now restored to 448 LIFE OF LEO XIII. indicate, the children of the Emerald Isle were amongst the first precious seeds of Catholicism cast into the virgin soil of free America. Catholicism, coming principally in the persons of Irish exiles, would add new strength to the reli gious element furnished by both Cavalier and Puritan. The easily-accounted-for hatred of all civil authority and law begotten in the Irish heart by long centuries of adminis trative oppression and organized judicial injustice would, when a quarter of a century later the great tide of emigra tion from Ireland set in steadily, be changed into love of Araerican institutions and a law-abiding spirit all the more lasting that they are founded on conscientious conviction. And so in the New World, as the radical and anti- Christian revolution progressed in the Old, the Christian religion was casting such deep roots ; faith in the Redeemer worshipped by our fathers, and the loving practice of His precepts, bearing, in the pure air and bright sunshine of freedora, fruits unseen before on earth — fruits such as to gladden the hearts of every successor of the sixth Pius and the seventh, from Leo XII. to Leo XIII. No less iraportant an eleraent to the population of the great Republic of the Western world has been contributed by the Teutonic races of the European Continent. The socialistic and radical notions imbibed at home by non- Catholic Germans die out after a few years of sojourn in the free and healthy air of a country where there is room for all, and where the fear of God and respect for es tablished law and order are inculcated at every fireside. So perish in a great raeasure the Socialist theories brought over frora France by the coraparatively few Frenchmen who corae to the United States to better their for tunes and then return. These retain their flippancy, their scepticisra, and their attachraent to the baneful theories learned from their doctrinaire masters. But whereas this last fraction of the quicksand population of the United States contribute little to the hopeful religious future of life, industry, and prosperity by the noble munificence of the Baroness- Burdett-Coutts. dPENING OP THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 4/^9 the Republic, the German-Catholic citizens show in the country of their adoption the same admirable qualities dis played in the Fatherland: intelligence, industry, and habits of organization for all purposes of beneficence, edu cation, and religion, which render them one of the most progressive, as they are one of the most conservative, ele ments of the new nation. Religion, therefore, in its teaching and its practice, and in the two great races which are its professors in the United States, is a principal factor in the estiraate which the Christian historian and statesraan raust form of the great future that lies before the nation founded by Wash ington. The month of November carae at length, and before its first week was ended a nuraber of prelates and priests were to be seen around the cathedral and the archbishop's resi dence. The metropolitans had been suramoned a few days in advance to consult with the apostolic delegate on the rules of procedure and other raatters. Two of these pre liminary conferences were held on the 6th and 7th, the lat ter in the Seminary of St. Mary's, where the Sulpicians placed the house at their disposal during the council. It was in the great hall of this institution, which, to gether with the Jesuit College of Georgetown, is the most venerable seat of learning in the Union. For John Car roll, on returning to Baltimore as its first bishop toward the close of the last century, brought with hira a band of Sulpicians, the parents of a long and venerated line of apostolic men, the educators and models of the clergy of Maryland and the neighboring States. On Sunday, November 9, the great council opened, a wonderful spectacle even to the citizens of Baltiraore, who had been accustomed to these periodical assemblages of the Catholic hierarchy and clergy. On the Saturday Leo XIIL, without waiting for the raessage which the council intended to send hira, telegraphed : The Holy Father sends his blessing to the fathers of the Plenary Council which begins to a^aj.— Louis Cardinal Jacobini. To which Archbishop >9 450 LIFE OF LEO XIIL Gibbons answered : Eighty4hree prelates assembled in couticil return thanks to your Holiness and assure you of their duti fulness and devotion. Was not this great ocean cable a type of that Catholic faith and love which bind continent to conrinent and unite the raost distant peoples in constant and loving intercourse with the Holy See, the Chair of Peter, and the fatherly heart of the Pontiff? Then there was a telegrara sent to the Archbishop of New York, the first prelate on the American continent on whom the Roraan purple had been conferred: "The pre lates of the Third Plenary Council, by unanimous vote, salute your Eminence, and tender to you the expression of their raost profound respect and sincere attachment." To which the cardinal replied, through his secretary, that " though absent in body, he is present in spirit, and ceases not to iraplore the benediction of Heaven on their labors." Foremost among the eighty-three prelates, the fathers of the Church in the United States, after the apostolic delegate, was the venerable Archbishop Kenrick, of St. Louis, consecrated coadjutor to Bishop Rosati in 1841, and Bishop of St. Louis since 1843 — most venerable for his age, his learning, his virtues, and his great labors in the cause of religion. What a retrospect was his, as he looked back over nearly half a century of episcopal toil in that great West, to remeraber how what was one immense desert fifty years before, traversed only by the wild Indian, the trap per, or the herds of buffalo, was now covered by flourishing States with large cities and an ever-increasing population! And then he could remember the Councils of Baltimore held before 1840, when the United States had only one archbishop, and California still belonged to Mexico and was buried in the slumberous obscurity of the Pacific coast. There, too, was Monsignor Osouf, Vicar-Apostolic of Northern Japan, who seemed to have come there to read in the marvellous growth of that young Church of America the prophetic forecast of what would be, ere another cen- CLOSING OF IHE PLENARY COUNCIL. 45 I tury had elapsed, the already flourishing Church of Austra lia and New Zealand, together with his own church in Japan and the persecuted churches of Cochin China and China. Of the proceedings of the council we need not say much to the reader. All the raatters therein discussed had been printed beforehand, carefully discussed by the arch bishops and bishops, assisted by a body of theologians and canonists summoned from all points of the Union. In the decrees thus prepared only certain amendments and correc tions were introduced. But as all this was to remain as the law of the American Church, every item, every iota was a thing maturely to be weighed. Then the work and the workmen for every session and private assemblage had been distributed before the council opened, so that everything fell at once into its own place, and the great living organ ism began its functions without hesitation or jar from the first hour to the last. The council was closed on the 7th of December. It had thus lasted a month. One reraarkable circumstance connected with this solemn event in the history of Ca- thohcism in the United States was, as the historian of the council relates,* " the courtesy, the kindness, and the hos pitality extended by the citizens of Baltiraore, even by such as were not Catholics, to the fathers of the council and to the clergymen suraraoned to attend it, and who were not few in number. Nor were these sentiments manifested by private citizens only, but by the city authorities, who showed in various ways their respect for the members of the council. The public recorder was especially kind, plac ing one of his deputies entirely at the service of the pre lates. For all this attention the delegate apostolic failed not to make grateful acknowledgment at the end of the council." The joint pastoral letter issued by the prelates, and pre pared with ex'treme oare, is in every way worthy of the * "Acta et Decreta," Iviii. 45 i LIFE OP LEO XIlL source from which it proceeds. Should the reader judge that what we have said in this chapter about the institu tions and character of the American people, or about the wonderful progress of Catholicism in their midst, is exagger ated, we beg hira to peruse the following extracts : " Full eighteen years have elapsed," so this pastoral letter begins, " since our predecessors were assembled in Plenary Council to proraote uniformity of disciphne, to provide for the exigencies of the day, to devise new means for the maintenance and diffusion of our holy religion which should be adequate to the great increase of the Ca tholic population. In. the interval the prelates, clergy, and faithful have been taught by a wholesome experience to appreciate the zeal, piety, and prudence that inspired the decrees of those venerable fathers, and to listen with cheer ful submission to their authoritative voice, whether uttered in warning, in exhortation, or in positive enactment. And the whole American Church deeply feels and cordially pro claims her gratitude for the treasures bequeathed to us by their wise and timely legislation. Its framers, in great part, have gone before us with the sign of peace, and now sleep the sleep of peace. But their work, besides following them to the dread tribunal of the great Judge to plead in their behalf and insure their reward, has remained upon earth as a safe guide and a rich blessing for the clergy and people of their generation. " Since that time, however, the body of our clergy and religious has grown to wonderful dimensions, our Catholic institutions have been multiplied tenfold, with a corre sponding increase in the number of our faithful laity. The territory, likewise, over which they are spread has been greatly enlarged. The land of the far West, that once was desolate and impassable, through God's providential mercy now rejoices and flourishes like the lily. Under His guiding hand it has been taught to bud forth and blossom and rejoice with joy and praise. The wilderness has exchanged its solitude for the hum of busy life and industry ; and the steps of our missionaries and Catholic JOINT PASTORAL LETTER. 453 settlers have invariably either preceded or accorapanied the westward progress of civilization. Forests have given way to cities, where Catholic temples re-echo the praises of the Most High. ... In view of this great progress of our holy re.igion, ... it has been judged wise and expedient, if not absolutely necessary, to examine anew the legislation of our predecessors. . . . " Such, too, has been the express wish and injunction of our Holy Father Leo XIIL, happily reigning, to whom, as Supreme Pontiff and the successor of the Prince of the Apostles, by inherent right belongs the power of convok ing this our Third Plenar}- or National Council, and ap pointing, as he has graciously done, an apostolic delegate to preside over its deliberations." Speaking of the religious errors against which the coun cil has to provide the safeguards and remedies, the pastoral letter says : " We have no reason to fear that you, beloved brethren, are likely to be carried away by these or other false doc trines condemned by the Vatican Council, such as material ism, or the denial of God's power to create, to reveal to mankind His hidden truths, to display by miracles His mighty power in this world, which is the work of His hands. But neither can we close our eyes to the fact that the teachers of scepticism and irreligion are at work in our country. . . . Could we rely fully on the innate good sense of the American people, and on that habitual reverence for God and religion which has been so far their just pride and glory, there might seera coraparatively little danger of the general diffusion of these wild theories which reject or ig nore Revelation, underraine raorality, and end not unfre quently by banishing God frora His own creation. But when we take into account the daily signs of growing un belief, and see how its heralds not only seek to raould the youthful mind in our colleges and seats of learning, but are also actively working araongst the masses, we cannot but shudder at the dangers which threaten us in the future. When to this we add the rapid growth of that false civiliza- 454 LIFE OP LEO XIII. tion which hides its foulness under the name of enlighten ment — involving, as it does, the undisguised worship of Mararaon, the anxious search after every ease, comfort, and luxury for raan's physical well-being, the all-absorbing desire to proraote his raaterial interests, the unconcern, or rather conterapt, for those of his higher and better nature — we cannot but feel that out of all this raust grow heartless ' materialisra, which is the best soil to receive the seeds of unbelief and irreligion. . . . The first thing to perish will be our liberties. For raen who know not God or reli gion can never respect the inalienable rights which man has received frora his Creator. The state, in such case, raust becorae a despotisra, whether its power be lodged in the hands of one or of raany." This is very forcibly stated. How truly it applies to what is happening at this raoraent in France and in Italy ! Coming to the iniquitous and hypocritical war made in Eu rope on Catholics because of the definition of Pontifical Infallibility, the letter says : " The governraents by which, three centuries ago, the new tenets of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin had been im posed on reluctant peoples by the sword, were the first, in deed the only ones, to again unsheathe it against Catholic believers. ... It was their purpose to exterminate by de grees the Catholic hierarchy, and to replace it by a servile priesthood. . . . " But the Catholics of Prussia, clergy and people, while proving theraselves most devoted and faithful to their country's laws, stood up like a wall of adamant against the tyranny of its rulers. . . . The struggle has now last ed fourteen years, but the very friends of this persecuting legislation have been driven at last to acknowledge that it has proved to be a miserable failure ; . . . they have had to fall back on the patriotism of the Catholic body to stay the threatening march of Socialisra and Revolution. In Switzerland, too, the persecution has yielded to the policy of mildness and conciliation adopted by our Holy Father Leo XIIL PATRIOTIC SPIRIT OF TIIE FA PHERS. 455 "... A Catholic finds himself at home in the United States, for the influence of the Church has been constantly exercised in behalf of individual rights and popular liber ties. And the right-minded American nowhere finds him self more at home than in the Catholic Church, for nowhere else can he breathe more freely that atraosphere of divine truth which alone can make him free. " We repudiate with equal earnestness the assertion that we need to lay aside any of our devotedness to our Church to be true Americans, and the insinuation that we need to abate any of our love for our country's principles and in stitutions to be faithful Catholics. "To argue that the Catholic Church is hostile to our great Repubc bliecause she teaches that ' there is no power but from God ' (Rom. xii. i) ; because, therefore, back of the events which led to the formation of the Republic, she sees the providence of God leading to that issue, and back of our country's laws the authority of God as their sanc tion — this is evidently so illogical and contradictory an ac cusation that we are astonished to hear it advanced by per sons of ordinary intelligence. We believe that our coun try's heroes were the instruments of the God of nations in establishing this home of freedom. To both the Alraighty and His instruments we look with grateful reverence. . . . " No less illogical would be the notion that there is aught in the free spirit of our Araerican institutions in compatible with perfect docility to the Church of Christ. The spirit of American freedora is not one of anarchy or of license. It essentially involves love of order, respect for rightful authority, and obedience to just laws. There is nothing in the character of the raost liberty-loving Ame rican which could hinder bis submission to the divine au thority of our Lord, or the hke authority delegated by Him to His Apostles or His Church." * Coming to speak of Leo XIIL, the assembled prelates show that they can appreciate his great qualities : *" Acta et Decreta Cone. Plen. Bait. Tertii," pp. Ixviii. -Ixxvi. 456 LIFE OF LEO XIII. " While enduring with the heroism of a martyr the trials which beset him, and trustfully awaiting the Almighty's day of deliverance, the energy and wisdom of Leo XIII. are felt to the ends of the earth. He is carrying on with the gov ernments of Europe the negotiations which promise soon to bring peace to the Church. In the East he is prepar ing the way for the return to Catholic unity of the mil lions whom the Greek schism has so long deprived of com munion with the See of Peter, and he is foUowing the pro gress of exploration in lands hitherto unknown or inacces sible with corresponding advances of Catholic missions. To the whole world his voice has gone forth again and again in counsels of eloquent wisdom, pointing out the path of truth in the important domains of philosophy and history ; the best means of improving human life in all its phases, individual, domestic, and social ; the ways in which the children of God should walk, that all flesh may see the salvation of God. " But in all the wide circle of his great responsibility the progress of the Church in these United States forms in a special manner both a source of joy and an object of solicitude to the Holy Father. With loving care his pre decessors watched and encouraged her first feeble begin nings. They cheered and fostered her development in the pure atraosphere of freedora when the name of Carroll shone with equal lustre at the head of her new-born hier archy and on the roll of our country's patriots. . . . " In all this astonishing development, from the rude beginnings of pioneer missionary toil, along the nearer and nearer approaches to the beauteous symmetry of the Church's perfect organization, the advance, so gf-adual and yet so rapid, has been safely guided in the lines of Catholic and apostolic tradition. ..." * Araong the subjects on which the Council expended most care and thought was that of education— education jn its widest and raost coraprehensive sense : the education fjljiclem. THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. 457 of the clergy and that of the laity in all their grades. This was also the Holy Father's chief care. The creation of a great National University for Catholics, like the Laved University for the Canadian confederation — a great school where the Catholic youth of the Republic, young clerics and young laymen alike, should find, together with the surest safeguards for faith and raorality, the very best masters in every department of knowledge which the country could supply or who could be tempted to come from abroad — such was the ideal. It was no sooner known to the public than a noble Catholic young lady, Miss Mary Gwendoline Caldwell, of New York, at once gave $300,000 toward the divine work contemplated. Her friend and banker, Mr. Eugene Kelly, gave $50,000. Others all over the Union gave generously. In the fu ture, we doubt not, there will be no lack of generosity. As we write upwards of a raillion of dollars has already been subscribed. A spacious property has been purchased not far frora the city of Washington, and the foundations of one great branch of the future University have been laid — a high- school for clerical studies, to which young candidates for the priesthood who have finished the ordinary curriculura in the seminaries, and who unite superior talent with su perior virtue, can corae, there to spend some three or four years more in perfecting themselves in mental philosophy, theology, and their kindred sciences, as well as in such of the physical and matheraatical sciences as raay enable the students issuing frora this school to take their place any where by the side of the raost accoraplished scholars, or to consecrate their acquired knowledge to teaching and training others. It is a noble beginning. May God prosper it and bless all those whose benefactions forward its progress ! This is the place to state raore explicitly than we have done that the Holy Father himself took especial pains in elaborating the preparatory schema of all matters to be treated jq the council. This schenia was discyssed with the 458 LIFE OF LEO XIIL archbishops in Rorae during the preceding November, 1883. The raatter of higher education Leo XIII. particu larly insisted on. He, therefore, took a warra personal interest in this council and its labors, as in a work with which he was identified. Even now he reads and studies with the great est care all that pertains to the great National University. While the archbishops were in Rorae during the au tumn of 1883, the Holy Father had strongly pressed upon their attention his project of creating for the higher educa tion of Eastern Catholics a great school in Athens and another in Constantinople. They had promised him to raake an appeal to their people in favor of this apostolic enterprise. During the council, however. Archbishop Gibbons was requested by the fathers to write to the Pope and obtain fuller information regarding these two proposed schools or universities. We here give that part of Leo XIII.'s an swer which relates both to the American National Univer sity and to the proposed schools at Athens and Constanti nople : " It was a great satisfaction to us to learn that you and your brother-bishops have undertaken the noble work of building as soon as possible a Catholic University in Ameri ca. Carried out by the initiative, the advocacy, and the watchful care of the episcopal body, this work will render great service both to religion and to your country; it will shed lustre on the Catholic name and will conduce to the advancement of literature and the sciences. " We are well aware what great expense you must incur in order to carry out your design, and have, therefore, ab stained from urging you. Venerable Brother, to send us the pecuniary help which we so earnestly besought of you last year while you were in Rome, and that for an object which is also of great importance. We mean the purpose we entertain, and which we press on you with the greatest insistance, of bringing back the Eastern peoples to the Catholic fold. We think that the establishment of schools CARDINALS GIBBONS AND TASCHEREAU. 459 both in Athens and in Constantinople would help more than anything else \_maxime'] to hasten this result. " Now, if the other matters already mentioned so naturally fill your raind and eraploy your care, Venerable Brother, we desire, nevertheless, that }ou do not altogether forget this other subject we have been just explaining, and that you be convinced, should our purpose come to havc a happy result, that it will greatly contribute to the glory of God, to the honor and increase of the Catholic Church, and that it will redound not a little to the credit of your own generosity and that of the American people." * Americans will understand the fatherly solicitude which the Supreme Shepherd of Christ's flock entertains for the conversion of these Eastern peoples who have strayed away from the fold ; they w ill help hira to create these great Catholic schools at Athens and Constantinople. Their charity will only bring a greater blessing on their own National University, the nursery of all true learning for the America of the future. The American Church has just contracted another debt of gratitude toward Leo XIII. In the consistory of June 7, 1886, he raised to the Roman purple the Archbishop of Baltimore, who had so worthily represented the Holy See in the Third National Council. In him and in Archbishop Taschereau, of Quebec, Araerican scholarship thus receives a supreme acknowledgment. * " Acta et Decreta," Ixiv. Ixv. CHAPTER XXIX. LEO XIII. AND GERMANY. OF all the enormous difficulties inherited from his predecessor, no one was of such magnitude as that which resulted from the position of the Church in Germany. It has been generally believed among non- Catholics that Prussia and the newly-constituted German Empire (1871-73), in enacting the rigorous "May Laws" and other proscriptive measures against Catholics, and in suppressing Monastic Orders, fining, imprisoning, and ban ishing bishops and priests, were only acting in self-defence against the machinations of the Jesuits, and protecting the national governraent and authority against the practical assuraption of suprerae and unlimited jurisdiction supposed to be implied in the Pontifical Infallibility decreed by the Council of the Vatican in 1870 (July 18). That no such assumption of jurisdiction was implied in the doctrine of infallibility is now recognized by all scholars, by all edu cated persons, indeed, who have taken the trouble to ex amine the doctrine itself. That there never existed any machinations of Jesuits, or any sort of organized opposition araong German Catholics to the creation of the empire or against its security or permanence, is an unquestioned and unquestionable fact of history. That, however, at the first official tidings, in 1867-68, of the intention of the court of Rorae to convene a general council, a certain number of high-placed and influential Bavarian Catholics and others did organize a conspiracy, with the sole purpose of setting public opinion in Germany in direct and violent opposition to the assembling of the council, is equally unquestionable. Two men among these are principally responsible for the persecutions to which German Catholics are subjected ^6q BEGINNING OP THE gErMAN DIPfICULTY. 46 1 since 1871, and these are Dr. Joseph Ignatius von Dollinger and Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe. The former, as scholars know, had been, down to i860, a foremost defender of the doctrines of the Catholic Church and the prerogatives of the Pontificate, as well as a notorious assailant of the Reforma tion and the Reformers. Since i860 Dr. Dollinger's atti tude toward the Church and the Papacy underwent a great change. This is evident in the first work issuing from his pen after that year.* In 1868 these two raen were so situated as to be able to use the whole power of the Bavarian governraent in opposing the projected assembling of the council and in influencing the other Catholic courts for the same purpose. On June 29 of that year Pius IX. issued the bull conven ing the council to open in the Vatican basilica on Decem ber 8 of the following year. The venerable Pontiff's " Sacerdotal Jubilee " — the fif tieth anniversary of his elevation to the priesthood — fell on the nth of April, 1869. It afforded the entire Catholic world a very natural opportunity to testify its love for one whose sufferings and kindly virtues had won him the deep sympathy of his children in every land. The movement for making this celebration a most enthusiastic and uni versal one originated in Germany — in Bavaria itself, by a strange coincidence with the Dollinger-Hohenlohe conspi racy. Beginning in Bamberg, these filial manifestations spread all over Germany, and from Gerraany extended to every country where Catholics are found. From the palace to the shepherd's hut went forth pilgriras with such offer ings as they could bring to the feet of the Coramon Father. The King of Prussia, the present emperor, who reverenced in Pius IX. the guardian of all great and sound principles, sent him on this occasion a vase of precious raaterial and rarest workmanship. Meanwhile a diplomatic note signed by Prince Hohen- * Dollinger, Kirche und Kirchen, Papsthum und Kirchenstadt. Munich, 1861. 462 Life op Leo xiii. lohe. Prime Minister of Bavaria, and addressed to all the representatives of that kingdora abroad, was circulating in all foreign courts. It was said in it : " The only dogmatic thesis which Rorae desires to have decided by the council, and which the Jesuits in Italy and Gerraany are now agitat ing, is the question of the infallibility of the Pope. This pretension, once becorae a dograa, will have a wider scope than the purely spiritual sphere, and will becorae evidently a political question ; for it will raise the power of the Sove reign Pontiff, even in tera.poral raatters, above all the princes and peoples of Christendora." This bugbear of " Infallibility " was just the very thing to create alarm and excitement in the rainds of non-Catho lic rulers and statesmen, who had only very confused no tions of doctrinal matters, but who were very decided in their hatred of anything that threatened the supremacy of the state, the omnipotence and infallibility of the civil power. It was so held up to the governmental and the popular minds as to excite the national and anti-papal feeling also. We all know how mighty a part the natural dislike of foreign interference or jurisdiction of any kind had in gaining to Luther the support of the Gerraan princes, and in obtain ing for the tyrannic measures of Henry VIII. the approval of his English Parliament. Frora 1868 till long after 1873 the most powerful organs of public opinion in Gerraany, following in the path opened by the Augsburg Gazette, inspired by Dr. Dollinger, began a journalistic crusade against infallibility, the Papacy, and the Jesuits. It is a sad story. But to those who have studied carefully the events of the last fifty years, none of the startling moral phenomena of the age will be more familiar than the fatal facility with which public opinion is created by journalisra on any given topic, even when the current thus set in motion is one which runs contrary to truth and to justice. The Franco German war carae to add its astonishing and treraendous catastrophes to the exciteraent of political HISTORY OF THE "KULTURKAMPF." 463 and theological passions caused by the definition of the doc trine of Papal Infallibility. The Piedmontese usurpers of the States of the Church had all along been the faithful and energetic allies and co-operators of Dollinger and Hohenlohe in arousing against the Pope and the Church the storm which was at its highest in September, 1870. In the first Imperial Parliament assembled in Berlin un der the sceptre of the Protestant Hohenzollerns, if Prince Bismarck was High Chancellor, Prince Hohenlohe was Vice- President. The Jesuits and the Monastic Orders had been sedulously painted in Gerraany as the causes of the teraporal decay and spiritual ruin which it was said and believed had fallen on Italy and rendered necessary the occupation of Rome by Victor Eraraanuel and the deposition of Pius IX. from even his little reranant of teraporal power. The Jesu its and the Monastic Orders were assiduously held up by the anti-Catholic press of Gerraany as opposed to the new empire, as the foes of Gerraan unity, as those who, having given to the youth of Catholic countries a wrong, unpro gressive, and anti-national education in the past, should in the future be deprived of all faculty of training youth and placed outside the pale of the coraraon law. Dr. Dollinger and his followers — and he had very raany powerful friends and disciples in Gerraany, raen whom he had educated and who looked up to him with veneration — now formed themselves into what is known as the " Old- Catholic " church, which allied itself with the Jansenists of Holland, with the Church of England, and sought, but sought in vain, to obtain from the schismatic Greeks the right hand of religious fellowship. As these lines are writ ten it is known that this movement has ended in utter failure. But in the enthusiasm with which the Protestant world hailed the birth of the new empire, in the dense mist of the prejudices and passions evoked by the definition of infalli bility and the downfall of the Pope's temporal power, this " Old-Catholic " church, assembled in council with the Jan- senist prelates and priests of Utrecht, with the representa- 464 lIfe of lEo Xiii. tives of the Protestant Church of England and of the old Eastern heresies, loomed up to the eyes of sympathizers like something very great, very portentous, if not prophetic of the utter ruin, spiritual as well as temporal, of the Church of Rome. At any rate, in Gerraany, and in particular within the kingdora of Prussia, the campaign begun against the Cath olic Church and the Papacy soon after the inauguration of the empire and the close of the w.ar with France was rep resented as one begun in the name and with the forces of civilization against the unprogressive and reactionary forces of Catholicisra. This was the way that the conflict inaugu rated in Prussia against the Church and the principles sup posed to be involved on both sides was described by the one faraous terra Kulturkampf (" civilization-conflict "), used by Prince Bisraarck, and thenceforward applied to his long struggle with the Church and the Holy See. The crusade of the German press against the Religious Orders, against the Jesuits particularly, had been growing ever in fierceness all through 1871 and up to June, 1872, when a law was passed suppressing the Society of Jesus and " other affiliated orders." It was mercilessly carried out. On January 9, 1873, Dr. Falk, the Prussian Minister of Public Worship, who was, whether unconsciously or knowingly, in all this and the subsequent proscriptive legis lation, really doing the work of the secret societies, intro duced into the Prussian Chambers a more comprehensive law, made still raore so in the following May. These laws, suppressing all the Religious Orders except those engaged in hospital work, and banishing their mem bers frora the kingdom, were called " the May Laws." Dr. Falk added to and completed his code till it left not one vestige of religious liberty to nearly nine and a half million Prussian Catholics out of a total population of between twenty-seven and twenty-eight millions. The laws were a despotic code of Csesarism, asserting the omnipotence of the state both in the civil and the ecclesiastical order. They regarded not only the Catholic Church but the Pro- THE TYRANNICAL " MA Y LA IVS." 465 testant Evangelical Church of Prussia, aiming at securing to the lay merabers of the latter greater liberty frora the control of their clergy, while proposing to substitute, in the case of Catholics, a national training and a national organization to the " Ultraraontanisra " so hateful to Ger man rationalists and radicals. This was intended, accord ing to the law-makers, to free Gerraan Catholics frora the despotism of Rorae. Episcopal authority was also to be reduced to a rainiraum under the pretext of giving the inferior clergy their due share of freedom. And the edu cation of candidates for the priesthood, like that of all Prussian youth, was to be laicized, taken away frora episco pal and clerical hands. The state was raade the sole judge of the fitness of priests for any ecclesiastical office whatso ever ; and the very candidates for holy orders were bound to pass a state examination and obtain a state certificate as a necessary condition before ordination. The semina ries were all closed. We might omit further details, and have only given the foregoing to enable the reader to appreciate what we stated in beginning this chapter, that nothing in the crush ing burden of care transferred in February, 1878, from the shoulders of Pius IX. to those of Leo XIIL, equal led in magnitude the difficulties inherent in the Prussian and German question. But it is instructive to learn raore of this terrible conflict. During the seven years which preceded his own eleva tion to the Papal Chair, Cardinal Pecci, frora his watch- tower in Perugia, had followed with intense and syrapa- thetic interest the noble struggle of the Gerraan Catholics — bishops, priests, and laymen — against the overwhelming power of a state wielding the mightiest military host of modern ages, and backed in its warfare against Catholicisra by the cora'oined forces of the secret societies and the influ ential and unscrupulous press controlled by the lodges or salaried by the state. It was a spectacle which was all the raore interesting to the sagacious mind of the prelate-statesman of Perugia 466 Life of leo xiii. that he saw on the side of the German Catholics one great eleraent of resistance, endurance, and final success which his own Catholic Italy lacked in her death-struggle with the Revolution — organization. The tendency to organize, and the faculty for doing it thoroughly, seem innate in the Teutonic race ; this time they proved the salvation of the Catholic Church in that empire. Both in the Prussian Chambers and in the Im perial Parliament the Catholic members formed, from the beginning, a body so nuraerous and so corapact, so well led and disciplined, that they made theraselves felt as a third power between the government party and the opposition. Their able and eloquent leader, Von Windthorst, compelled all along the admiration and respect of all sections of the legislature. But the Catholics of Gerraany had not waited for the stormy years following 1870 to assemble and organ ize and cheer each other on in every path that could leid them to a perfect union of rainds and hearts, to a real pro gress in intellectual and raoral culture. Ever since the first terrible convulsion of 1848 had warned all Europe that the Revolution was upon them, the German Catholics had made it a rule to assemble yearly in congress. The twenty-first Catholic Congress met in May ence in September, 1871. They then and there, under the inspiration of such lovers of true nobility as Bishop Von Ketteler, took every precaution which Christian wisdom and charity as well as the purest patriotism could suggest to perfect still more their work of organizing all the Catholic zeal and activities of the Fatherland against the evils which were agitating and convulsing Christendom. The noble part which the Catholics of Prussia, of all Germany enrolled under the leadership of King William, had taken in the Franco-Prussian war, was a living, a re cent meraory. The Catholic soldiers had been foremost in bravery and loyalty ; the Catholic chaplains — and none araong these raore so than the Jesuits — had been heroically devoted and self-sacrificing ; so had the Sisters of Charity HEROIC SPIRIT OF THE GERMAN CATHOLICS. 467 in hospital and on the battle-field. These memories were a perpetual inspiration to Von Windthorst and his asso ciates. When bishops and priests were imprisoned, disfran chised, banished, the Catholic laity were true to them selves and to God, without ever doing an act or saying a word which raight lay thera open to the suspicion or ac cusation of disloyalty or disaffection toward their country or its institutions. They held their yearly Congress, calm ly, resolutely surveying together the situation in which the "May Laws" left each diocese, each parish, and devising the most effective means which patriotism and religion could suggest for keeping their suffering brethren togeth er, for providing a reraedy to every ill their zeal could reach, for keeping faith and hope and trust in Providence alive in the hearts of their countrymen. We resume the thread of our narrative, and return to 1872-73- To the protestations raade in the Prussian Chambers by the Catholic members of Parliaraent, that the laws of the kingdom guarantee expressly and solemnly the full liberty of the Catholic religion, the governraent and the Parliament answered by at once repealing these laws. Pius IX., for whora in preceding years the Eraperor Williara had professed an esteera full of reverence, remonstrated with his Majesty against acts which were not only violations of the Prussian law but of the treaties concluded with the Holy See; the emperor replied, in terras doubtless dictated to him by the stern chancellor, that the Prussian Catholics were only required to obey the existing laws, and that obey they must. The Archbishop of Cologne, Priraate of Prussia, the bishops of MUnster, Breslau, and Paderborn, together with Archbishop Ledochow.ski, of Gnesen and Posen, became the special objects of the prirae minister's severity, as they were the foreraost in resisting the passing and execution of the obnoxious laws. And so things went on from bad to worse, and frora worse to the very extremity of ill among 468 LLPe of Leo xiil the Catholics of Prussia, till in the Catholic Congress held at Wiirzburg on September 9, 1877, ^^ was said that "the churches of Germany all along the Rhine Valley, from Constance to Rotterdam, had not a single bishop left ! " Every one of them had been removed by death or by the hand of the persecutor. In 1873, when the " May Laws" began to be in full operation, the nine raillions* of Prus sian Catholics had 8,439 clergyraen engaged in ministering to their spiritual wants. In 1881, of that number 1,125 parish priests and 645 assistants had either died or been imprisoned or banished the country, while their places re mained vacant. Add to these 1,770 secular priests the raerabers of the Monastic Orders, who in peaceful times are the zealous and efficient helpmates of the parochial clergy, and the reader will be able to judge of the religious destitution thus created ; 644,697 souls in 601 parishes had not a single clergyman left to them, while 584 parishes with 1,501,994 souls were in a great raeasure destitute of all priestly ministrations. While the Falk legislation was as yet in its preparatory stage, it was sought either to obtain the tacit acquiescence of the court of Rome to the proposed raeasures, or to find a specious pretext for a diploraatic rupture. Cardinal Hohenlohe, a brother of Prince Chlodwig, was appointed ambassador of the Gerraan Empire near the Holy See. Doubtless the cardinal accepted this raission in the hope of preventing greater raisfortunes ; the Pope, at any rate, refused to receive him. And so all diplomatic intercourse ceased between the Vatican and Berlin. In the consistory of December, 1872, Pius IX. aniraadverted severely on the suppression of the Monastic Orders in Germany, on the harshness and downright cruelty to which their members had been subjected, on the violation of laws enacted with the formal and solemn concurrence of the Holy See. This allocution, if an incentive or a pretext were needed for fur ther and extreme measures of spoliation and persecution, *8,7ii,535- THE "OLD-CATHOLIC" CHURCII. 469 very opportunely served the purpose of Prussian statesraan- ship. All the blarae was cast on the un}'ielding and uncon- ciliating temper of the Vatican by what had begun to bc called " the reptile press " of Gerraany — that is, by the raost powerful journals in the pay of the government, and slav ishly devoted to the advocacy of all its raeasures. It was, in reality, the Kulturkarapf press, whose sole aira was to hold up the Papacy, the Catholic Church, and their insti tutions to hatred and scorn, and to raake them responsible ¦ for the very wrongs done them in the persons of the Catho hc millions of Gerraany. And the non Catholic world, for the raost part, espoused the views of the " reptile press," and sided with the all-pow erful oppressor. Dr. Dollinger and his associates in the " Old-Catholic " movement lost no tirae in profiting by the favorable oppor tunity thus created for thera ; the Catholic body in Prussia and elsewhere had indignantly and unaniraously spurned every threat or seduction used to induce thera to become a " national " church independent of the centre of Catholic unity. The " Old Catholics " at once demanded to be re cognized as the legal Catholic body, as the national Catho lic Church of the erapire. In October, 1873, Prussia recog nized the legal title of Dr. Reinkens, lately consecrated as bishop of the " Old-Catholic " church by the Jansenist schismatics of Holland. He was appointed to receive a regular salary frora the state. It is known what active syrapathy the Church of Eng land gave to the Old-Catholic faction, which, in the rainds of representative men in Great Britain, promised to sepa rate from the Papacy the great body of Gerraan Catholics. In London, as in Berlin, those who were raost hopeful of such a result forgot that our age has seen many would-be imitators of Martin Luther, every one of whom has ended in ignominious failure. This is the age for reunion, not for separation ; for re conciliation araong Christians, not for further division. To the Piedraontese masters of Rome and rulers of 470 LIFE OF LEO XIII. Italy, whose examples in the Peninsula the German gov ernment were beginning to imitate and to surpass, this war fare against the Church, and the rupture of all relations with the Vatican, seemed a fitting season for drawing the bonds of friendship with the Imperial government closer. The King of Italy visited Berlin, and the Emperor William visited Milan. It was known all through these unhappy tiraes, or it was strongly suspected, that the conservative Hohenzollern monarch, influenced by his admirable and gentle empress, had a lurking respect for the Roman Pon tiff and for that Roman Church which Guizot called " the greatest school of reverence which ever existed." He did not, therefore, pay his return visit at Rome and the Quiri nal, but at Milan, the once capital of the fairest southern province ever conquered and held by Gerraany. Certain it is that these visits were hailed by the anti- Catholic press on both sides of the Alps, on both sides of the Atlantic indeed, as indicative of a purpose hostile to the Church and the Papacy. These hopes or expectations, in so far, at least, as a formal schism in Gerraany was concerned, were doomed to disappointment. English coraraon sense itself reprobated the cruel and illiberal policy of the Prussian government. " The coercion by force of a clergy conscientiously and irrevocably pledged to resistance is not justifiable, and is still less likely to prove possible." So wrote the greatest of British newspapers. " It may be necessary for the German government to make the experiment of reforming the Ro man Catholic Church within their country ; and if they could succeed it would be an adrairable achievement. But, for our part, we think it raore likely that they will fail." * The Catholic Congress which raet in Mayence in mid- Septeraber, 1871, gave an earnest of the heroic temper of its members and of that of the raillions whom they repre sented. They protested against the occupation of Rome, by a power hostile to the Church, as a robbery which no law * The London Times, Wednesday, December 11, 1873. NA TIONAL ORGANIZA TION OF GERMAN CA THOLIC S. 4 7 I can validate, no lapse of time render lawful ; they protested against the acts of every temporal governraent which pre tends to dictate to the Church w-hat doctrine she raust teach, which opposes obstacles to the teaching of the Church or encourages rebellion against her doctrine or her discipline ; they protested against the recent encroachments on their own liberties and rights. They protested as well against the tyrannical and oppressive conduct of the Protestant and rationalistic majority in Switzerland toward their Catholic brethren. There was a noble and manly address drawn up and sent to the latter. In every act and utterance of the Congress there was evidence of that free and generous spirit which was resolved to demand to the full the legitiraate measure of civil and religious liberty, and to suffer for right and conscience all that might could do. They accepted a plan for binding into one grand national society of education school-teachers, clergy, and parents. The Catholic press was organized after the same fashion. Catholic journalists inadequately sup ported were to receive aid frora a coraraon fund. Pens, purses, hands, heads, and hearts were to unite in one sa cred cause. Every effort and utterance thenceforth was to be worthy of it. Against the advance of the so-called " German science " all were asked and pledged to combine by promoting true Catholic science. There was a solemn denunciation of the Italian " Law of Guarantees " because these guaranteed nothing, and there was, underlying thera, the inadmissible assumption that the state has a right to say to the Church under what conditions she shall exercise her office, prepare, appoint, and regulate her rainisters in their functions. The occupation of Rome is an international wrong, zjvhich all Catholics are bound to denounce and oppose until it is done away with. So spoke Catholic Germany in 1871. So continued the same bold, courageous voice to thrill Europe year after year, rising clearer and raore stirring as the wrongs inflicted on Catholics increased. Such accents raoved the Catholic heart so powerfully that in 1874 the government forbade 472 LIFE OP LEO XIII. peremptorily the reassembling of these Congresses. But though the public raeetings of the representatives of the Catholic body were thus prohibited, the school and press associations continued their unceasing labors in private. The organization was so strong, so perfect, so extensive, and animated by so determined a spirit, that the utmost efforts of the police and detective forces proved unavailing to prevent brother from assisting brother in a struggle where the highest, dearest interests were at stake. We shall speak further on of the negotiations under taken by Leo XIII. to put a stop to these persecutions and to mitigate the lot of the German Catholics. But the reader can better judge of the persistency of the Prussian policy and of its results by the following passage of a letter from the Archbishop of Cologne, written on behalf of his brother- bishops in answer to an address of sympathy from the Plenary Council of Baltimore. It is dated March lo, 1885: " Unhappily," the letter says, " we are far from seeing the end of our afflictions. The chain of the May Laws, which fetters the rights and the liberty of the Church, still weighs upon us ; our seminaries and our monasteries still remain suppressed ; thousands of parishes are still desolate or deprived of their pastors. The Religious Orders and con gregations are still expelled and banished from their na tive land. The discipline of the Church, the discharge of the episcopal office, and the administration of ecclesiasti cal property are subject, in many respects, to the manage raent and control of the governraent, which claims, more over, to raanage the schools. Ecclesiastical students, and even priests, are bound to serve in the army. The arch bishops of Prussia still languish in exile under a foreign sky. We are thus deprived of many precious graces which, in the midst of the struggle and the danger, we need to aid us to preserve intact and inviolable our unity and constancy to the end." But in the very year of Leo XIII.'s accession to the Pontificate the leading Conservative journal of the Protes- RESULTS OF TIIE "KULTURKAMPF" 473 tant Evangelical press suras up in the following words the results of the Kulturkarapf, or pretended battle for civiliza tion and progress, carried on against Catholicism, but ex tending its ravages to all positive religion : " The Evangelical Church has suffered grievously from the KulturkarapL . . . Indifference and hatred toward the Church and toward Christianity have increased to an as tounding degree, and the unchristianized masses of the lower orders have enrolled theraselves by thousands in the army of social deraocracy. As a result of the putting aside of the Church and of Christianity, and of the irapious doc trine that ' everything is nature,' which has been the out come, immorality has increased and the nuraber of criraes is multiplied to an appalling extent. The bonds of social order are being dissevered, because the moral factors, au thority and religion, have been long since set aside and re placed by rationalistic coraraercialisra ; so that we find our selves in the face of the raost serious coraplications in the social, moral, and ecclesiastical order. " Of all the proraises which were raade at the beginning of the Kulturkampf not one has been realized ; not that only, but the reverse has happened in every direction. In stead of peace there are everywhere disorder and confu sion." * Of course the forcible education of all the Catholic youth of Prussia during the seven last years of the reign of Pius IX. must have had most disastrous effects. And these must have gone on increasing over another generation of young people during the seven first years of the reign of Leo XIII. No raan could more surely calculate these re sults than one of his cultivated intelligence and long expe rience. But finding himself helpless to bring about a sudden change in Prince Bismarck's baneful and (even to Germany) suicidal pohcy of persecution, he showed invincible patience * The journal Reichsbote for October, 1878, quoted fijom Qount Mur phy's " Chair of Peter." 474 II P^ OF LEO XI II. and consumraate tact in accepting the advances of the all- powerful high chancellor, as well as in conducting the ne gotiations begun. But while waiting and winning every possible advantage offered to him, the wise and enlightened Pontiff, from the very first raonths of his reign, set about the slow work of surely winning the confidence and respect of both the eraperor and his chancellor by a raasterly series of encyclical letters, containing the fundaraental lessons of social wisdom so needful to Germany in face of Socialism, Rationalism, and Naturalism ; so necessary to all govern ments and peoples in the present age of revolution. It is certain that, when the first news of his election was announced, it was asked whether Leo XIII. would not succeed in settling the " Gerraan difficulty." His reputa tion as a diplomat, a statesman, and a scholar greatly favored hira in Gerraany. It is a most instructive lesson to hear from Prince Bis marck's own lips an account of the advances made by him to the new Pope. As we already know, one of the first acts of the Holy Father was to write to the Emperor William, notifying his Majesty of his election and expressing his deep regret at the rupture between Germany and the Holy See. Now, what says the Gerraan chancellor ? " Never did we lose sight of the fact that the ' May Laws ' were ' laws of conflict,' but that, nevertheless, their object was to lead to peace. Now [in April, 1886] the pub lic journals tell rae that since the battle of Olmiitz no such a disgraceful concession has been asked of Prussia [as the revision of the ' May Laws ' and the closing of the Kultur kampf]. They cast up to me that I am going to Canossa. But in the same discourse [of 1875] in which I said we would not go to Canossa — and this I repeat to-day — I ex plained clearly what should be understood by going to Canossa. . . . " I added that the government owed it to their Catholic subjects to persist in seeking a means, a way of regulating in the most conciliating manner the borders which separate the domain of the temporal from that of the spiritual PRINCE BISMARCK .1X1) LEO XIIL 475 power, the limits necessary for the interior peace of the realm. " The hope entertained raeanwhile that a Pontiff more disposed to peace might appear was realized three years after this last discourse of raine ; and I remember what Leo XIII. said, soon after his accession, in one of his encyclicals* in 1878: " ' Thus we shall continue to labor for the German na tion in the midst of obstacles of every kind ; nor shall our soul ever know rest until peace be restored to the Church in that country.' " I believe, my lords, that the passages I here recall are sufficient to show how baseless is the assertion that we ever considered these laws of conflict against the Church as a basis on which to build up the durable future of the Empire or of Prussia. " In pursuance of the purpose I was just explaining to you, I began, as soon as the present Pope ascended the * No such words are found in the encyclicals of 1878. But in the let ter addressed by the Pope, on December 24 of that year, to the Archbishop of Cologne are these eloquent words : " As it was . . . our purpose from the beginning of our Pontificate, so we endeavored to induce both sove reigns and nations to live at peace and friendship with the Church. As to you, Venerable Brother, you are aware that we at an early day bent our mind on obtaining for the noble German nation, after settling all their differences, the blessings and fruits of a lasting peace ; nor is it less known to you that, in so far as we are concerned, no pains were spared to attain an end so glorious and so worthy of our care. Whether, however, what we have undertaken and are trying to bring about shall have a successful issue, He knoweth from whom cometh every blessing and who hath given us this ardent zeal and wish for peace. " But, no matter how things turn out, we must yield to the divine will, continuing as long as life lasts to cherish the same intense zeal and to persevere in the fulfilment of the duty put upon us. . . . Wherefore none of the obstacles opposed to us on everj' side shall divert us from the pur pose of seeking the salvation of all, and therefore of your nation. For our heart shall never be able to rest so long as, 10 the great loss of souls, we shall see the bishops of the Church condemned (as if guilty) or banished from their country, the priestly ministry surrounded by a network of difficulties, religious communities and pious congregations dispersed, and the train ing of youth, not even excepting young clerics, withdrawn from the author rity and watchfulness of the bishops " (" Acta," ii. 167, i68>. 476 LIFE OP LEO XIII. throne, to o^en publici juris negotiations with Monsignor Masella [the Nuncio in Munich] which gave hope of a good issue, and which lasted till Cardinal Franchi became Secre tary of State [March 9, 1878], and were afterwards sus pended." * It is evident from this extract not only that Prince Bis marck was anxious for peace and more than willing to withdraw from the untenable position " on the domain of the spiritual power " in which the May Laws placed the Prussian governraent — the Imperial government of Ger many, in fact — in the eyes of the civilized world. Further on in the same raemorable discourse he frankly admits that the results of the Kulturkarapf were, if not disastrous to the state, at least unworthy of the conflict itself: " When the action of the governraent and the administra' tion on the clergy is limited to our becoming the rivals of the ecclesiastical authorities and of the Pope himself, then we fall into the chief blunder of the May Laws, which vi tiated this entire system of legislation. We began a great strategic movement with mighty forces and very trifling re sults ; we only created strife and opposition, because, in ray judgraent, we airaed at achieving what was impossible- This strategy against the clergy will always bring about unpleasantness and leave the governraent in the rear among the ranks of the minority." Thus, then, we know that in the war against the Catho lic Church, as in that against France a few years previously, Bismarck had pushed into the enemy's territory with over whelming forces, occupying the very heart of the country, and compelling peace at any price, in so far as he could make the Church surrender everything but what the di vine law alone forbade to yield. But he found that in ravaging the " domain of the Church " he was ruining the dearest interests of the monarchy. And, wise man as he is, he only wished for a safe and honorable means of retreat- * Translated from the full report of Prince Bismarck's speech in the Prussian House of Lords, April 14, 1886. THE PEAR OF "GOING TO CA.VOSSA." 477 ing from a position it was a crime in morals and a blunder in politics to have ever occupied. At any rate, in 1880 the very political and financial necessities of the Gerraan chancellor compelled him to make some steps' toward conciliation. Concessions were made in the parliamentary sessions of 1880 and 1881. In January of the latter year Von W'indthorst introduced into the Lower Prussian Chamber a bill relieving priests from all punishraent for saying Mass or administering the sacraments. Both the law thus introduced and the penal law it modified reraind one forcibly of the legislation of the two first Stuarts in England and Ireland, as well as of the unrepealed Penal Laws which weighed on Irish Catholics just a century ago. Englishraen at present are rather ashamed of this unchristian and barbarous code ; and one may well wonder that in the last quarter of the nineteenth century a man of Prince Bismarck's enlightened mind and liberal professions should not have hesitated to employ such weapons as the Falk Laws, or that a nation like the Prussians, so proud of their culture and their rank in Europe, should have applauded or even tolerated such a policy. It was taking up the antiquated, blood-stained, and rusty instruments of coercion and persecution used by Elizabeth and the Stuarts, by Cromwell and his Coramon wealth, and by the successors of Williara III. down to our own times. But as these weapons failed in Ireland in their immediate purpose of conversion or perversion of a people — failed, indeed, in everything excepting in exterminating an ancient race and sowing their hearts with bitter memo ries — so did they and must they fail in Germany. And so must they in Poland. As the pacific and conciliatory policy of Leo XIII. gained ground in Gerraany, and the power of the Catholic party, the Centre, both in the Prussian and in the Imperial Parliament, became raore necessary to the government, the tendency to raeasures of greater leniency became raore ap parent. But the European press, the so-called liberal press especially, had early asked the question whether the Ger- 478 LIFE OP LEO XIlL man emperor and his chancellor would not go to Canossa, as had done the Emperor Henry IV. in the time of the seventh Gregory. The question was repeated as a watch word and must have had no little influence on a man of Bismarck's temper. Be that as it raay, on June 5, 1883, a very important law called the Church Bill was introduced by HerrVon Putt- kamer, who had taken Dr. Falk's place in the Prussian ministry. The bill contained six clauses modifying the most odious and oppressive features of the existing legisla tion. It was passed by 224 votes against 107. The very partial mitigation thus obtained was accepted by Catholics only as some slight evidence on the part of the government of a disposition to yield. But although Dr. Falk had resigned, and sorae of the laws which bore his name had been, nominally at least, repealed, the May Laws remained like a sword suspended over the head of every Catholic man, woman, and child in Prussia, nay, in all the German Empire. We have seen, by the letter of the Archbishop of Co logne quoted above, and dated two years after the passing of this law, how deplorable in 1885 was the condition of Prussian Catholics. The testimony of the Catholic Union of the Rhineland, asserabled in congress in May, 1884, leaves no roora to question the sad condition of their Church. " The Archbishops of Cologne and Posen have been su perseded," the Union state in a brief summary of their grievances, " and the other Prussian prelates are liable at any moment to be dealt with in like manner. Upwards of one thousand parishes are bereaved. In the archdio cese of Posen priests are still deprived of their salaries. . . . All the seminaries for priestly education have been closed. The Royal Ecclesiastical Court continues to exist, as a monument of the oppression of Catholics. Priests are still liable to be expelled from their country at a moment's no tice. Most of the Religious Orders have been suppressed. The few reraaining are oppressed." * * Quoted from " Chair of Peter," p. 406. THE DISTURBING POLISH QUESTION. 479 In Septeraber of the same year, and on the eve of the Pariiamentary elections, the Catholic members, led by Von Windthorst, issued an address to the electors, in which they say among other things : " The so-called Kulturkampf is by no means ended. It is true that the flood has somewhat subsided, but the current is still running high. Let Catho lics beware when these waters become still and stagnant ; their poisonous exhalations would be rauch raore fatal to the national life than when the furious flood was at its highest. This is the real evil, the most formidable evil, from which Germany suffers. To counteract it, to extir pate it, is our chief and most patriotic task." * One great disturbing eleraent contributing not a little to prejudice the cause of the Gerraan Catholics, to nourish the hostility of Prince Bisraarck and the National party, and to prevent the progress of negotiations with the Holy See, was the Polish question. The Poles were Catholics, and, as such, fell under the same proscriptive legislation. But their unquenchable yearning for a restoration of their own na tionality, the calamitous attempts to raise aloft the standard of their lost cause, the covert or open agitation which ever more stirred the populations of the Polish provinces an nexed to the kingdora of Prussia — all these sacred feelings and aspirations of a disraembered country with a glorious past constituted, in the eyes of the founders of the German Empire and the assertors of Teutonic supremacy, a perma nent danger to the Fatherland and its newly established unity. The one unpardonable sin in the Catholic Parliamentary party in Germany was, all along, their syrapathy with the suffering Poles ; this community of religion threw upon all Prussian Catholics the shadow of suspicion that they were not the well-wishers of the empire. This prejudice met the Pope at every turn in his unremitting labors for the reli gious pacification of Prussia. Even at our present writing, when the last vestiges of * Ibidem. 480 LiPE OP LEO XUL the Kulturkampf are being reraoved one after the other, like a terrific thunder-storra retiring beyond the Vosges and the Alps to devastate other lands, the noble band of men led by Von Windthorst are to the Prussian government an object of fear and suspicion because they will not give up their generous sympathies for their Polish brethren. It is a pity that Prince Bismarck cannot learn the truth which has taken possession of Gladstone's great mind and greater heart in his latest but most glorious years, and see that conciliation is raore powerful to bind people to people and race to race than coercion ; and that the Pole can be raade the generous friend and the devoted ally of the Ger raan by equal and just laws, by a large-minded share of reli gious freedora, by that practical brotherly love and equality which Christianity teaches. Make Prussian Poland the hap piest portion of the Gerraan Empire, and it will be the most faithful. It will be like an impassable barrier between Ger many and Russian aggression. If you would make the Poles forget their lost nationali ty, then treat them as a privileged and favored portion of your subjects, so as to convince thera that they have found in your governraent something better than they could hope for under a separate and independent nationahty. At any rate, we do not believe, after the long and sad experience of Ireland, in the policy of expropriating, direct ly or indirectly, an ancient and proud race. Their native land is their own. God has given them a right to it. It would be wisdom in their rulers to make life in it prosper ous, contented, happy for all its inhabitants. Sow their souls with justice and kindness, and you will reap a rich harvest of love, of gratitude, of eternal fidelity. The new religious law in Prussia, virtually cancelling the existing anti-Catholic legislation, was finally voted by the Prussian Chamber on May 9, 1886, and sanctioned by the king on May 21. It was a splendid triuraph for Leo XIII. CHAPTER XXX. LEO XIII. AND HIGHER STUDIES. /'^VERY one who had known the extraordinary zeal V^ shown by Cardinal Pecci, as Bishop of Perugia, for the advanceraent of education and the promotion of the highest Christian philosophy as the basis of all true .learn ing, was prepared to see him, when elevated to the Pontifi cal throne, lend his supreme authority and influence to the fostering of a solid and complete education in every diocese within the Church. We have already seen what he under took and accomplished in Rome, from the very beginning of his Pontificate, for the benefit of the laboring classes. Not one portion of the children or of the youth of Rorae, not even apprentices and young artisans iraperfectly edu cated, escaped the fatherly solicitude of the Pope. Know ing how deterrained the governraental and municipal autho rities were on possessing theraselves of every existing school to which they could lay claira by any legal artifice, or of which they could obtain the direction by the utmost stretch of power, the Pope endeavored to be beforehand with them in establishing day and night schools with teachers on whose religious principles he could rely. In that way he succeed ed in saving thousands of Roman children, and numbers of boys and young people in need of instruction and eager to obtain it, frora being swept into the nets of the anti-Catho lic and anti-Christian proselytisra spread in every street of Rome. We have already mentioned the adrairable letter written to Cardinal Monaco la Valletta, his vicar-general in Rorae, on this very raatter. We shall presently see another brief but pregnant and no less adrairable letter to Cardinal Pa rocchi, who succeeded Cardinal La Valletta in his charge. The letter to Cardinal Parocchi, however, entirely relates to 31 481 482 LIPE OF LEO XIII. the higher literary studies of the Roraan clergy. And this brings us to see what Leo XIII. undertook and accom plished in the raatter of higher studies. What all who knew Leo XIII. especially expected of him, in the matter of higher studies, was to see him carry out through the universal Church the design so happily con ceived in Perugia, and partially executed there, of restoring to its ancient splendor the Christian philosophy which had its birth in the very first age of the Church, receiving its forra and developraents frora the early Apologists and Fathers, and attaining under St. Thoraas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, its scientific raaturity. The reader who in the preceding chapters has followed with any attention the logical sequence of Cardinal Pecci's pastoral letters raust have seen that he traces all the moral aberrations and political disorders of our age and of modern tiraes to the introduction, in the sixteenth century parti cularly, of a false and anti-Christian philosophy, which ignores any authority superior to individual reason, elimi nates all the supernatural order from the domain of the intellect and of private and social life, and enthrones natu ralism, rationalism, and individualisra as the law-givers in thought and action of huraan society. While, in his first encyclicals, he clearly warns not only his brother-bishops, but governments, the entire Cathohc flock, and all civilized peoples whom his voice may reach, of the necessity of returning, if society would be saved from imminent ruin, to obedience to the Church, to the do cile acceptance of the teaching of the one divinely appoint ed authority on earth, he affirms that the false wisdom or philosophy which the last three centuries have followed raust be set aside and Christian wisdom and philosophy raade the light of all education. A false and fatal education, in conforraity with the natu ralism and rationalism above mentioned, has, like the flick ering of a " will-o'-the-wisp " in a dark night, led modern society into the marshes in which it is floundering. Re ligion, Christianity, Catholicism must now come with the LEO XIII. ON TRUE AND FALSE PHILOSOPHY. 483 steady, unfailing lamp of her divine philosophy, extricate social order from its mortal peril, and lead it back to the old paths. This false education, this anti-Christian training of more than three hundred years has misled and ruined the Chris tendom reared by the Church ; the old educational meth ods must be put in use again. And Thomas Aquinas must once more be enthroned as " the Angel of the Schools " ; his raethod and doctrine must be the light of all higher teaching, for his works are only revealed truth set before the human raind in its most sci entific forra. Let there be no raisunderstanding in this Leo XIII.'s teaching. He is not for setting aside as pernicious, or use less, or hostile to revelation what Christian theologians, philosophers, and scientists acknowledge and accept as true science. Writing on Februar}' 24, 1880, to the Archbishop of Cologne, he clearly expresses the value he sets on such science, while affirming the necessity of the counter-educa tion we are here describing : " The pest of Socialism, . . . which so deeply perverts the sense of our populations, derives all its power frora the darkness it causes in the intellect by hiding the light of the eternal truths, and from its corrupting the rule of life laid down by Christian morality ; it can never be extirpated till the minds of its dupes are brought back to a clear know ledge of the supremely true and supreraely good. . . . To bring thera thus back ... is our duty. . . . For, albeit in our age such wonderful and incredible progress — as all con fess — has been made in the arts pertaining to the comfort of life as well as in the natural sciences, nevertheless the corruption of public manners goes on daily increasing. And as the history of past- times has taught us that what brings erring nations back frora the wrong path and pre serves them from ruin is not progress in the arts or natural sciences, but their fervor in learning and fulfilling the law of Christ, we therefore ardently desire that the Church should everywhere be in the full enjoyment of her liberty, 484 LIFE OF LEO XIII. that she may bestow on the nations the benefits of this sav ing doctrine." * There is in the Pontiff's mind and purpose no antagon isra to true progress and the legitiraate developments of all the arts and sciences ; for these follow naturally, inevitably on the increase in Christian knowledge and Christian mo rality in all coraraunities. But what he aims at is to make the fulness of truth, natural and supernatural, the very life of the mind by setting both the one and the other before it stripped of all doubt and error, like the pure light present ed to the sound bodily eye, entering it of its own accord and giving that organ its life by placing it in the full enjoy ment of its proper object. And not that only, but the Pontiff aims at giving to the will, in this perfect light of the natural and supernatural world raade known to it, the raoral law of Christ, erabracing not only what God has written on our hearts in the law of nature, but the super natural law of love and divine self-sacrifice which the Father has written for us in lurainous letters in the words and actions of Christ, His Incarnate Son. The philosophy of St. Thoraas, the philosophy of Christianity, does but place every follower of Christ in the heart of these concentric worlds, the natural and the super natural orders, and enlighten him perfectly on his relations and his duties to both. Leo XIII. entertained the raost firra conviction that all education should be reforraed on Christian principles ; that all the appliances of raodern progress should be used to make Christian truth and Christian raorality lovely to the young; that the Christian horae should be like that of Nazareth in which Christ was brought up, parents there considering theraselves bound in conscience to regard and to rear each child of theirs as " a child of God," whose life was to be raodelled on that of the Incarnate Son. What his ideas about instruction and education in elementary and intermediary schools are we know already. What they * " Acta," ii. 43-46. AN ENCYCLICAL ON CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 485 should be in the universit}- or professional stage he inforras us in his encyclicals on St. Thomas Aquinas and the nu merous letters written to raen of e\er}' nation to encourage and stimulate thera in their efforts to restore Christian phi losophy by making the great works of St. Thomas the basis of their studies and teaching. Not before the 4th of August, 1879, could Leo XIII. find time to complete and publish the wonderful document by which he authbritativel}- declared that the Thoraistic philosophy should in all Catholic schools be the source from which the professors should borrow their doctrine and their method. To the non-Catholic world this encyclical was represented as an atterapt to raake the modern intel lectual world retrograde to the scholasticism of the middle ages, and to put on the mind all the fetters of the old un- progressiveness. This could onl}- be said by the thoroughly ignorant or the deeply prejudiced. Theodore Beza and Bucer were wont to say that if the works and method of Thomas Aquinas were taken from the defenders of Catho licism, its doctors would soon be driven from the field of controversy and their Church itself overturned. But Leo XIII.'s purpose was not to arm the controver sialists of the Church of Rorae with victorious weapons against Protestantisra ; the needs of the age go far beyond that. In our day it is the whole structure of revealed truth, the whole body of religious truth as such, and as distin guished frora a godless, spiritless raaterialisra, that the teachers and preachers of Catholic doctrine have to defend and to hold up to the adrairation of the educated intelli gence of the age. "The Eternal Father's only-begotten Son, who appeared upon earth to bring down araong men salvation with the light of divine wisdom, conferred upon the world a truly great and admirable benefit when, about to reascend to heaven. He bade His apostles ' to go forth and teach all nations,' * and thus left the Church which He had founded *St Matthew xxviii. 19. 486 LIFE OF LEO XIIL to be the coramon and supreme teacher of all peoples. Mankind, freed by truth, raust be preserved by truth ; the fruits of heavenly teaching in which raan found his salva tion should have been but short-lived unless Christ, our Lord, had instituted an everlasting teaching authority to convey faith to all minds. The Church, therefore, thus strengthened by the promises of her Divine Founder and imitating His charity, so fulfilled His commands that she always had for sole purpose and chiefly sought this one thing, to have His religion observed and to make a per petual war on error. Toward accomplishing this purpose bishops bestow their vigilance and their labors ; toward this councils raake laws and decrees ; and this is the subject of the daily care of the Roraan Pontiffs, to whom, as to Peter's, the Prince of the Apostles, successors in the primacy, be longs the office of teaching and confirming in the faith their brothers." Such is the beginning of this encyclical, the appear ance of which marks what may be called a new era in intellectual philosophy, at least in so far as the Catholic Church is concerned. The Pope, after demonstrating the utility of philosophy, " on which all the other sciences depend in a great measure for their own right consti tution," insists on the circumstances of the present age, which requires "a philosophical doctrine that has an equal regard for the rules of faith and the dignity of all human science." " If the intellect is sound and firmly based on solid and true principles, its light will becorae the source of raanifold benefits both to the indi vidual and to the community. ... It is quite in con formity with the order of Providence to ask human sci ence to lend its aid in bringing the nations back to faith and health. This was the wise and clever raethod of which the most illustrious Fathers of the Church frequently made use, as antiquity attests. These sarae Fathers considered that reason played a manifold and an important part, which the great St. Augustine defined in these pregnant terms : attributing to this \_philosophic'\ science . . . thf reason zsjhy PHILOSOPHY PREPARES THE WA Y FOR FAITH. 487 salutary faith . . . is begotten, is fostered, is protected, is strengthened.* The encyclical goes on to show how philosophy (that is, a right and scientific use of reason) prepares the way for faith, demonstrates by her own native power many funda mental truths of religion — such as the existence of God, His creation and government of the world, etc. — the nature and attributes of the Deit}-, and others which "are proposed for our belief by revelation, or which are closely connected with the supernatural order." The earl}- Fathers made use of this raethod to show the reasonableness of Christianity. This scientific use of reason, or of the pagan philosophy in so far as it was based on true principles, so common among the early Christian apologists, is compared by the Pope "to the gold and silver vessels and rich vestments borrowed by the Hebrews frora their Egyptian raasters. . . . These spoils, which till then had been used in shameful rites and vain superstitions, w-ere devoted to the service of the true God." So did Gregory of Neo-Caesarea praise Origen for employing the intellectual armor of the heathen in combat ing their errors. So did a host of others araong the early Christian writers. " If natural reason could produce so plentiful a crop of good fruit before Christ carae to bestow on it fecundity, how much richer will the harvest be when His saving grace restores and increases the native powers of the huraan mind ! " Is it not, then, evident that this manner of philosophiz ing opens up a level and easy road to faith?" Continuing this line of argument, the encyclical goes on to show what truths of the religious order natural reason is capable of attaining to and proving — the existence of God, His perfections and attributes ; the miraculous and super natural origin and character of the Gospel doctrine ; the foundation of the Church by Christ, " because (as the Vati can Council has decreed) of its erainent propagation, its surpassing holiness, and its exhaustless fecundity in all *St. Augustine, De Trinit., lib. xiv. I: huic scientiis tribuens . . . illud quo fides saluberrima . . . gignitur, nutritur, defenditur, roboratur. .488 LIFE OF LEO XIII. places ; because of its Catholic unity, its unshaken stability, it produces a great and perpetual motive of credibility, and an irrefragable testimony to its own divine raission. " Based on these firra foundations, philosophy is called into frequent and perpetual use, in order to impart to theo logy the nature, the condition, and the character of a true science. The whole body of revealed doctrines must be bound together in its various parts, each fitting in its own place and deriving from its proper principles, so that their coherence and connection maybe evident; and, finally, all and each must be supported by respectively proper and irre futable arguments." This — passing over the history of Christian philosophy — brings us to the last coraplete and perfectly scientific form which Thoraas Aquinas gave to it in his two great works, the " Suraraa Theologiae " and the " Summa contra Gen tiles," which are the most wonderful treatises of natural theology in existence. In the first chapters relating to Joa chim Pecci's labors in Perugia we described the peculiar method of St. Thomas. Here we raerely add what Leo XIII. says of his erainence as a scholar and teacher: "Araong the doctors of the [raediseval] schools St. Thomas stands forth by far the first and the master of all. As Cajetan has remarked, because he had a sovereign veneration for all the ancient doctors, he seems to have united in hii'nself the intellectual powers of them all. " Their teachings, which were like the scattered mem bers of the same body, he put together and completed, ar ranging thera in a raarvellous order, and giving them such wonderful increase that he is justly held to be the great de fender and glory of the Catholic Church. " A raan by nature fond of learning and quick-witted, with a ready and retentive memory, of irreproachable vir tue, a devoted lover of truth, with a mind enriched with all human and divine knowledge, as the sun he warmed the earth with the vital power of his sanctity and fihed it with the light of his doctrine. He wrote on every part of phi- , losophy with equal penetration and solidity. His disputa- 489 490 LIFE OF LEO XIII. tions embrace the laws of reasoning, God and incorporeal substances, man and all things accessible to our senses, hu man acts and their principles. And in all these you have never to regret the absence of abundance in the rich accu mulation of subject-matters, or of a fit arrangement of parts, or excellence in the method of proceeding, or solidity of principles, or cogency in the arguments, or clearness and propriety in the diction, or facility in explaining what is most difficult. " To this we must add that the Angelic Doctor extended the sphere of his philosophical conclusions and speculations to the very reasons and principles of things, opening out the widest field for study, and containing within themselves the germs of an infinity of truths, an exhaustless raine for future teachers to draw from at the proper time and with rich results. As he used the same intellectual process in re futing error, he succeeded in corabating single-handed all the erroneous systems of past ages, and supplied victorious weapons to the champions of truth against the errors which are to crop up in succession to the end of time. '' Besides this, while very properly distinguishing reason from faith, he binds thera both together in friendly accord without violating the rights of either or forgetting what is due to their respective dignity. In this way reason, in St. Thomas, rises to such sublime heights that human nature can fly no higher, nor can faith hope from reason greater or more powerful aid than she receives in the pages of St. Thomas. " This it was which, in past ages especially, impelled men most eminent as theologians and philosophers to collect to gether the immortal writings of St. Thomas, and to devote themselves not merely to study his angelic wisdom but to feed their souls upon it." The supreme honor paid to this great man's incompar able merit was the homage paid to his works and authority by the cecumenical councils held since the thirteenth cen tury, frora that of Lyons to that of the Vatican. In the Council of Trent the " Surama " of St. Thomas was placed THE ACADEMY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 49 I on the altar b}- the side of the Gospels, as being the most perfect and scientific exposition of revealed truth. This encyclical created great enthusiasm among Catholic scholars in every land. The intellectual activity which it called forth and promoted in all Catholic schools of philo sophy and theolog}^ was accompanied by increased efforts to make the accord between reason and faith, so beauti fully praised by the Pontiff, still more effective in modern Catholic universities, where Science, in the fullest accepta tion of the term, should be shown to be the able and will ing auxiliary of revelation. The Holy Father hastened to establish in Rome an Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, in w-hich the very best scholars the Church can boast of and her foremost scien tists should labor side by side to build up the magnificent edifice of philosophical science as Thomas Aquinas con ceived it and as raodern tiraes require it. The Sovereign Pontiff commissioned some select scholars to prepare a per fect edition of the works of the saint. Meanwhile, by the orders of His Holiness, the high schools of philosophy and theology in Rome were so en larged as to accommodate select youths from the dioceses of Italy, who would receive in Rome the very best culture the capital of the Christian world could afford, and would return to their own dioceses to elevate the intellectual stan dard there, and to forra in their turn superior men, tho roughly grounded in true philosophy, and thereby enabled to rise themselves and to lift up others with them to the highest sacred science. • But the Holy Father's chief zeal was bestowed on the clergy of his own diocese of Rorae. Just as he was labor ing to make the students belonging to the nationalities of the Greek rite accomplished Greek scholars, writers, and orators, in order to insure greater success to their aposto late among their countrymen, so would he have the Roraan secular clergy accoraplished raen of letters, wielding with the most perfect skill their own native Italian and the purest Latin diction of the ancient Romans, as well as 492 LIFE OF LEO XIII. that exquisite Greek idiom which Demosthenes, Sopho cles, and Plato made the most perfect vehicle of noble thought ever used by man. He therefore founded for his serainarians a course of higher literary studies in Italian, Latin, and Greek, to which the raost distinguished for talent should be admitted at the end of the ordinary college curriculum. They were to be provided with the very best professors to be found, the execution of the whole project being entrusted to that ex cellent scholar, writer, and orator, as well as model priest and bishop, Cardinal Parocchi, the Pope's vicar. The letter in which Leo. XIII.'s will in this regard is raade known is dated May 20, 1885 : " You understand perfectly," the letter says, " what we have often said, and not without good reason, that serious and continual efforts should be raade to have the clergy distinguish theraselves in all branches of knowledge. The needs of the present age iraperatively require it. Intellec tual culture advances so rapidly, and the appetite for learn ing is so insatiable, that the clergy would find themselves at a disadvantage for the proper and fruitful discharge of their duties if they did not merit for their order the same reputa tion for intellectual culture of which other professions are so ambitious. " This is why we have bestowed so much care and thought on the best methods of culture for our young semi narians. Beginning by the most serious matters of study, we have endeavored to revive the doctrine and method of St. Thomas Aquinas in philosophy and theology. " But since literature occupies so large a space in college studies, and contributes such large stores to our knowledge for all the purposes of social life and aU its huraanities and graces, we have resolved to lay down certain lines on which letters have to be cultivated." After showing at length the advantages to be obtained frora high literary culture, Leo XIII. continues: " It is on account of these practical advantages that the Cathohc Church, which truly values all that is honorable, aU that is LETTER TO CARDINAL PAROCCHI. 493 beautiful, all that is praiseworth}-, has alwa}'s attached to the culture of letters a due iraportance and has encouraged it in every way. We see that the Fathers of the Church were adorned with all the graces of the literary culture of their respective tiraes. And there arc sorae of them whose native genius and acquired literary art place thera almost on a level w-ith the raost classic Greeks and Roraans. " Let us also say that the Church can claim the enviable merit of having saved from destruction the greatest part of the masterpieces of the ancient Greek and Latin poets, ora tors, and historians. Besides — a thing which every one knows — in the ages when the culture of letters was neg lected or irapossible, when literary farae was drowned araid the clash and turault of arms all over Europe, letters found a refuge in the coraraunity-horaes of the monks or the secular priesthood. " Nor should we forget that araong the Popes who have gone before us there are raany who acquired distinguished fame in letters." * Leo XIII. mentions last among these cultured Popes Leo X., who was rather a patron of learning and literary men than a raan of letters hiraself. He oraits all raention of the glorious names of cultured Pontiffs who carae after Leo — men, in our judgraent, far more accomplished than even their own great predecessors before the sixteenth cen tury. Cardinal Parocchi was in his eleraent when occupied in promoting advancement and excellence among the youth entrusted to him. The Seminario Romano, the great school for the diocesan clergy, is organized on the highest level of culture. There is a department or college for Oriental philology, with a faculty of rare excellence. The dean is the illustrious Mon signor Ciasco, the light of the Augustinian Order, who is professor of Hebrew. The chairs of Greek, Arabic, Arme nian, Syriac, and Copt are filled by men of the highest fame. * " Acta," V. 61-65. 494 LIFE OF LEO XLLL But the " Pontifical Institute of High Literature," which the Pope officially founded by the letter just mentioned, is already in full operation. The students have given to the public specimens of their ability and progress. The fact is that the very name of Leo XIII. is an incen tive to the acquisition of literary excellence. His example, his unceasing labors and generous patronage, have diffused throughout the entire body of the clergy a noble spirit of emulation and industry. CHAPTER XXXI. LEO XIII. AND FRANCE. [1S7S-1SS6.] 'I'^O people, araong all those w-ho were the more special ^ I F object of Leo XIII.'s pastoral sohcitude during the first eight }-ear3 of his Pontificate, occupied a greater place in his mind and his heart than the French Catholics- no, not even the populations of Italy, his own flesh and blood, and so closely connected with the narae, the glories, and the ver}- existence of Catholicity. France, in spite of the treraendous changes effected by the Revolution of 1789-93 in the whole fraraework of French society, and in the very habits of thought, the very language, feelings, and conduct of the people ; in spite even of the confiscation by Napoleon of the States of the Church and the imprisonment and exile of Pope and cardinals, was still, in the eyes of the whole civilized world, the foremost Catholic nation, as she continued to be, down to 1 870-71, the leading nation in the political w-orld. But the change in the brilliant capital of France from what it was during the Universal Exposition of 1868-69 to what the government troops found it on wresting it from the Commune in 1872 w-as not more appalling than the change effected throughout the length and breadth of the country from 1878 to 1886. In the capital of the empire and in the empire itself, its institutions and government, the woful transformation was not effected by the terrible war through which the country had passed, nor by any for eign might upsetting, destroying, and then rebuilding after its own caprice ; the forces which had been at work destroy ing and removing what the first Revolution had spared of the fair and glorious edifice reared by twelve centuries of 496 LLFE OF LEO XIII. Christian civilization were forces frora within, not from without — they were the fanatical anti-Christian, anti-social passions of Frenchraen theraselves. Why do we solicit the reader's attention to this unique spectacle in all history of the foremost of Christian nations laying violent hands on herself and extinguishing the ver}' sources of her own life ? Simply to make American and English readers under stand what a task Leo XIIL, on ascending the papal throne on February 20, 1878, had to undertake in his endeavor to save religion in republican France. From the days of Pope Stephen III. (752-757), who first called in the Franks under Charles Martel to save Rome and the independence of the Pontifical office from the ty ranny of the Lombards, down to the last years of Pius IX., the devotion of Catholic France to the Papacy was a tradi tional virtue. For one araong her rulers who was harsh or tyrannical in his dealings with a Pope, there were ten at least who deeraed it their duty and their glory to protect against all external violence the sacred principality which the sword of the great Charles Martel and that of his greater son, Charleraagne, had won for the Roman Church, and which their solemnly recorded acts and the jurispru dence of all Christendom guaranteed to the Holy See as the bulwark of its independence. Leo XIII. knew that if the wine of Jacobinism, with which the French Revolutionary armies were drunk in 1798-99, raade thera and their leaders commit such im pious excesses, that they did not represent Catholic France. There was a Catholic France, oppressed by the Revolution, which survived, and its love afterward overflowed and flood ed Rome, and that missionary world so dear to Rome, with its benefactions and heroic devotedness. But Leo XIII. on his accession found France in a worse and more hopeless plight than the seventh Pius found on his election in 1800. That gentle and saintly Pontiff's con ciliatory spirit was able to prevail on Napoleon Bonaparte to set up anew the altars torn down by the Revolution. WliA TJOA CHI.M PECCI BEHELD IN ERA .VCE IN iS/d. 49 7 But could Leo XIII. prevent that same Revolution which was in 1878 a living, mighty, overmastering spirit in France, from tearing down these altars anew, and making of the work of destruction this tirae a work as thorough as ungod liness armed with political omnipotence could effect ? All intelligent readers know that I am stating in its simplest terms the Problem — one which is still unsolved, while all Europe and all civilized peoples are anxiously watching if even Leo XIII.'s prudence, skill, and eloquence will be able to solve it in favor of religion. And now will the reader be patient with us while we give a brief retrospect of that Catholic France, and en deavor to account for the existence of that raighty prob lem which at this moment religion and irreligion are both trying to solve, each in its own favor ? No Pope had ever to face such a difficulty as this French one, whose phases are still succeeding each other like the terrible scenes in Wagner's epic dramas, where all ends in the setting for ever of the sun of the old-time religion. We Americans preserve glorious recollections of French missionary zeal on our continent. The French heralds of the Gospel had been at work among the native tribes in our forests before the Mayflower had touched the shores of New England. Our own Protestant historians have told the story of their sufferings and labors and have glorified the laborers. How account for this twofold life, so contradictory in its principles, its airas, its deeds ? We must, however, ac count for it if we would understand what is now passing before our eyes, what perplexes the ordinary superficial ob server, what is the raost wonderful, if not the saddest, spec tacle in the history of nations, and what is the heaviest cross which Leo XIII. has to bear. When in 1846 Joachim Pecci, on his way from London to Rome, paused awhile in the French capital, he was much struck by the amazing progress religion seeraed to be making in the kingdora in spite of the strong Voltairean scepticism which survived the first Revolution, the First 498 LIFE OF LEO XIII. Empire, and the Bourbon Restoration, and had gained in intellectual predominance and social influence what it had lost in its early fanaticism and violence. It is a lesson to be learned by all Christian peoples, the working of these two adverse principles, whose final strug gle now claims all the pastoral care, all the preternatural wisdom and patience, that Leo XIII. can bestow upon it. Whatever mistakes Louis Philippe's government com mitted in its relations toward the Church from 1830 to 1848, it is certain that, both at home and abroad, the deep religious spirit of French Catholics displayed extraordinary zeal in creating institutions of every kind for education, charity, and beneficence. The religious revival which had begun under the first Napoleonic Erapire and had contin ued under the restored Bourbons produced marvellous re sults under the Orleanist monarchy. It was like an arctic springtide, the whole land bursting forth into a miraculous bloom of apostolic fecundity. Religious orders of men and women sprang up everywhere, and the old missionary spi rit of the French — one of the mightiest forces at the com raand of the Church to spread the Christian narae — covered Asia and Araerica with bands of heroic men and women solely devoted to the propagation of the faith among the heathen or its extension on the unoccupied territories of the New World. This admirable raissionary spirit was only a new form of the living faith which sent Godfrey de Bouillon to Pales tine, St. Louis to the plague-stricken Delta of the Nile, and again to his death among the Saracens. It filled all classes in France during the crusading ages, from the royal family and the highest nobility down to the peasant and the arti san. All were the soldiers of Christ. And this glorious spirit was not confined to one sex : Frenchwomen had caught the sacred flame as well as the raen. St. Louis had his young queen by his side all through that first African carapaign when pestilence annihilated his army and left the feeble and sickly remnants with their sovereigns in the hands of the Moslem. The spirit of French womanhood THE SPIRIT OP FRENCH CA THOLJCISM. 499 in the following centuries found no unworthy representa tive in the heroic and saintly Joan of Arc, to whose virtues and true character even English scholars are now beginning to do fuU justice. The early colonial history of our own North Araerica is the history, principally, of the heroic missionaries of France. Robertson, Bancroft, Parkraan, Kipp have \-ied with each other in describing the expeditions, the sufferings, the suc cesses, the heroic lives crow-ned by a still raore heroic death, of Jesuits, Franciscans, Dorainicans, of the Sulpicians of Montreal and of the priests of the Serainary of Quebec, the advance-guards of Christ and civilization on all the mighty continent between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the long line of the Pacific coast. And if the Christian manhood of France was worthily represented in these far- off times by Jogues and Goupil, by Lallemand, Brebeuf, and Rasles, by Champlain and La Salle and Marquette, French womanhood blossomed forth in such glorious names as Marie de I'lncarnation, the foundress of the Quebec Ursulines, and Marguerite Bourgeoys, the foun dress of the Sisters of Notre Dame of Montreal.* There w-as no interraission in that wonderful apostolic fervor which glowed in French bosoms down to the dread ful days of the Reign of Terror. What sublime heights of heroism the Christian men and women of France displayed all through that period of massacres and persecutions every school-boy and school girl knows at present. Their supernatural virtue shone at horae in France while the guillotine was en permanence and mowed down its harvests night and day, and when the prisons were full of the noblest, the purest, the best — the hecatombs whose blood washed away the sins of the three preceding generations. And abroad the exiles who found their way to the shores of Great Britain and of Araerica, were not their very lives the Gospel law in practice? All along our Atlantic sea board and in the interior, all through the vast regions * See "Heroic Women of the Bible and the Church," last chapter. 5oO LIFE OF LEO XLlI. drained by the Hudson, the Susquehanna, the St. Law rence, the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Missouri, the ex iled priests of France labored fruitfully everywhere, leaving behind naraes revered alike by Protestant and by Catholic, names to be ever blessed by those who have succeeded to their labors and glory in being their spiritual children: Cheverus in New England, Dubois and Brute and Mar6chal in our Middle States, Flaget and his noble associates in the West, Dubourg and Odin in New Orleans — these are only a few among a host of great and good men who brought with them from France the inextinguishable fire of apostolic zeal and priestly virtue to our shores. In Canada, too, these saintly fugitives found a refuge, a home, and a congenial field. He who writes these lines treasures as one of the dearest recollections of his boyhood the memory and friendship of these French refugees. The scepticism popularized in France by Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, and the fearful raoral corruption im planted in court and castle, in city and country, by the ex ample of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., had not quenched in the France of St. Louis the living faith and the chival rous zeal of the crusader-king. Yes, truly, the Church of France, much as it had suf fered in the great Revolution, profoundly as it had been modified by the changes which the First Consul had exact ed from Pius VIL, and fiercely as it had been assailed and thwarted and restricted by political parties, by the formid able sceptic press, and by unfriendly governments, was in 1846, when Monsignor Pecci visited the splendid capital of the Orleans raonarchy, a raajestic edifice with its founda tions solidly resting on the reverence and devotion of the masses, and doing its work wdth an enlightened and exem plary clergy, and through the instrumentality of institu tions which had not their equal in nurabers nor their su perior in excellence in any Catholic country, save, perhaps, in Italy and within the Papal States. And everything in the Church of France went on pro gressing in excellence after the downfall of Louis Phi- THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL. 5OI hppe, during the short-lived Republic of 1848-52, and even under the corrupting and demoralizing reign of the last Napoleon — everything: Religious Orders, establishments of education, charit}-, and beneficence, schools of every grade, from the infant-as}'lura schools up to the numerous Jesuit colleges which rivalled on c\cr}- point of France the ly- ceum-colleges of the French Uiiixcrsit}-, and confessedly surpassed thera in literary and scientific efficienc}-, as they most assuredl}- did in the religious training their great schools gave to Catholic youth. Look back and remeraber how admirably organized w as, in ever}- diocese of France, the methods of pulpit and catechistical instruction devised by the bishop and his clergy for the mental training of all classes of their people. We, who were brought up among a people where Sunday preaching and Sunday-schools and Christian Doctrine Societies were standing and flourishing popular institutions, cannot recall without wonder what we beheld in France during well-nigh eight years spent there, mixing with all ranks of her people as a missionary, speak ing their own tongue, and laboring araong them in the capital as well as in the provincial cities and country parts. Every bishop vied with his brother bishop in devising every possible raethod for conveying religious instruction to young and old. Think of the great names which adorn ed the French pulpit under the last Bourbons, Louis Phi lippe, and Napoleon. And those whose eloquence shone in the cathedrals outside of Paris were men who must have shone anywhere by their superior gifts. Add to this the glo rious Catholic literature which addressed itself to the quick French intelligence in every walk of life, and which aimed at counteracting the terrible propaganda of error, corruption, unbelief, socialisra, and revolutionism, of which the French University, independent of the Church and supported by the treasure and the influence of the state, was only one mighty ally, and not by any means the mightiest. The official teaching in the French University was, as is notorious, leavened by scepticism when at its best in the present century; it always combated the Church, discre- 502 LIFE OF LEO XIII. dited Christianity, ridiculed ihe clergy, and held them up to hatred or suspicion when it did not hold them up to contempt. The French medical schools taught the bald est raaterialisra ; the French law schools a rampant Eras- tianisra ; the French scientific and military schools laughed at all religion and turned out practical atheists. French novels and the French theatre, aided by all the charms of » exquisite elegance of diction and the fascinations of the stage and the opera, taught and sang but one thing — the triumph of vice. Think of Eugene Sue, and Alexandre Dumas, and Balzac, and George Sand, and a host of oth ers who only lacked a little of the pre-erainence in evil of those we have naraed. And the French daily and periodical press! With the exception of the few excellent journals which defended the cause of religion, journalistic literature in France, the ablest, cleverest, most fascinating in the world, was in the hands of scepticism, unbelief, and all those then secret and raighty organizations which, by various raethods, were working out one purpose — the over throw in France of the Church and of social order. Such were, on both sides, the antagonistic forces at work as Joachira Pecci had beheld thera on the spot, and continued to watch ever at Perugia. It is in the moral world as in the physical — a tyro can construe what is known as the parallelogram of forces, and deduce from the figure, by a very simple calculation, the resultant. On which side, in France, was arrayed the mightiest sura of moral force? On that of irreligion and revolution. All the power and influence of government, legislature, of the University and the army of professors and teachers in its pay, of the press, the theatre, the clubs, all the training of the great schools which fed the army, the navy, the various departments of engineering in a great manufacturing and commercial coun try, were on the side of irreligion ; on the other there was a sum of active forces far inferior to those controlled by unbelief. The numerical majority, made up of the popular raasses in the country, were indeed on the side of religion ; but they were raere inert and inactive matter. ANTI-CHRISTIAN SOCIETIES MASTERS OE FRANCE. 503 When, after thirty-two years, Joachim Pecci became Leo XIIL, w-hat saw he? In what were the leading classes, as well as araong the laboring population of the cities, there was a sum of active forces on the side of unbelief which far outbalanced those of religion. The former w-ould hesitate at no violence to carry their ends. The latter could only use moral raeans ; armed resistance, for them, zvas out of the question. This was well known to the men who overthrew the MacMahon government and placed Jules Grevy in the presidential chair. They knew- that if they could raake up their minds to set aside all the laws which protected or favored religion in France, even the Concordat, and sup pressed, one after the other, all the institutions of Catho- hcism, and set up the state, as in Italy, to be the absolute and irresistible raaster of property, of liberty, of life, that no leader w-ould stand forth to bid Catholics arm and de fend their homes, their altars, and their schools. And, knowing this, they have acted on it, progressing year after year in their career of disfranchisement, confisca tion, and oppression. What could the Pope do ? In France — let us say it openly — it was the secret societies which elected M. Grevy, as it was they who had upset Marshal MacMahon. Conse quently the Church found itself, under the new regime, ab solutely in the power of its deadliest foe. Was it to be thought that the foe who had been striving ever since 18 16 to gain this very victory over the Church would forego his advantage ? There could be no treaty of peace and amity between the two powers. One must perish, and that was Catholicism, in so far as human raight can kill it. And what was Leo XIII. to do ? What counsels could he give the French bishops, the French Catholic laity, Ca tholic journalists, and organized Catholic bodies in France ? There was no alternative, since armed resistance was out of the question, but to be patient, to be united, to keep to gether, to help and sustain and cheer each other in a pas sive resistance which should raake use of all the raeans of 504 LIFE OP LEO XIII. persuasion and all the force of public opinion won by put- ting all the wrong on the side of the enemy, and leaving it in the power of no man to censure justly word or act of the oppressed raajority. 1880 came, and the Church of France found herself and all her glorious institutions, rights, and liberties at the mercy of Jules Ferry and Paul Bert. Gambetta, the sworn enemy of the Church of his coun try, had risen to be prime minister, and had fallen ; and then came his sudden death. His war-cry had been, Down with the clergy ! He had made the term clerical as odious, as hated as ever the narae of Jesuit had been. But clerical ism, with hira, raeant raore than the priest ; it meant the religion, the belief, the worship of which he was the min ister. But even Gambetta, it was thought when he took the reins of administration in his hands, would be more conser vative than his principles and former professions. So the propelling force behind him — the blind, pitiless, relentless force of the secret clubs — pushed him out of the way, and then came, after his death, the sweeping measures of sup pression, confiscation, and persecution devised by the Ferry ministry. The French bishops in this emergency were not to be silenced by the fear of state prosecutions or by the with drawal of their salaries. The venerable Cardinal Guibert, Archbishop of Paris, sent to the government an eloquent and energetic protest against the suppression of the Reli gious Orders in France. It had no more effect, nor had the protests of his colleagues, in shaming the rainisters and the legislature into a sense of right-doing than shouting at the rushing waters of Niagara or shaking one's fist at the mighty cataract could arrest for an instant the steady downpour of the great river. What the nuncio in Paris, Monsignor Czacki, attempted or effected to second the resistance of the French hierarchy we need not detail here. His conduct was the theme of adverse and conflicting criticisms, LETTER OP LEO XIII. TO CARDINAL GUIBERT. 505 But in October, 1880, while there still reraained some faint hope of making the French government pause in their proscriptive raeasures, Leo XIII. wrote to the French bishops, through the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris, one of those stirring letters which are at one and the same time an appeal to the calm reason of statesmen, based on the highest principles of national self-interest, social order, re ligion, justice, and equity, and a plea addressed to the deep est sentiments of the heart — gratitude for past services and respect for the loftiest convictions and the noblest deeds of self-sacrifice. The Religious Orders of both raen and woraen had, the government pretended, arisen and taken root in France without the sanction of the law or in spite of its prohibi tory statutes. The weakness of this plea — a shallow pre text which ever)'body saw through — was demonstrated by the fact that, when the edict of suppression was brought before the law-courts for their sanction and as a preliminary to immediate execution, upwards of five hundred magis trates resigned their position on the bench rather than sanction even by silent acquiescence the illegal and mon strous iniquity contemplated by the party in power. To their soleran and indignant protest Leo XIII. added his own.He cannot accept the practical preraise on which Jules Ferry and Paul Bert base their action — that the Church, in the full integrity of her vital organisra and the full liberty of her action, has not a right to exist in France. She was there before the arrival of Clovis and his Franks ; her in fluence and action were the civilizing and organizing forces which built up the nation ; they helped raainly to give it the foremost place among those of Christendom and the world. "Wherever the Catholic Church freely exists," Leo XIII. writes, " there Religious Orders spontaneously grow up ; they spring from the Church as the branch from the trunk of the tree. They are the auxiliaries whose help the bishops find to be especially necessary in our days, helping 506 LLFE OF LEO XIII. by their skill and industry the secular clergy in their minis trations, and relieving by Christian charity the needs of the poor." He praises the cardinal for showing, in his eloquent let ter to the governraent, " that there is no form of civil con stitution to which Religious Orders are adverse or inimical ; that it is for the interest of public order and peace to allow so raany inoffensive citizens full freedom to lead a quiet and orderly life ; that it does not beseem men who wish well to their countrymen to break in appearance with the religion which all profess, and to persecute the faith re ceived from their parents and ancestors." The great pretence of the men who are either opposed in theory to the existence of Monastic Orders in the Church, or who, in practice, are in favor of their extinction, is that they are only excrescences on the organism of the Church, and that she is better without them. To this the great teacher of Christendora replies: " The distinguished raen against whom the sword of the law was thus sharpened were the lawful offspring of the Church, carefully trained by her to all that is honorable in virtue and in literary culture. Civilization is immensely indebted to them in raore than one respect, for their holy lives were to the people a perpetual exhortation to virtue, and their learning shed a lustre on the spheres both of sacred and of profane knowledge ; their immortal works have enriched every departraent of the fine arts." * The raind of the Pope travels back to those ages when France was troubled by no religious divisions, when the entire raass of her people were of one religious faith and the laborious zeal of their clergy was taxed to the utmost. " Whenever," he says, " there was a scarcity of secular * In the France of the nineteenth century it is needful only to mention, in sacred oratory, the names of Lacordaire and Monsabre among the Do minicans, those of De Ravignan and F^lix among the Jesuits ; in general learning and scholarship the names of Dom Guferanger and Cardinal Pitra, Benedictines, of Fathers Cahier and Martin, the authors of the grandest work of descriptive art of our times, " Les Vitraux de Bourges." A XOBLE DEFENCE OF THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS. 507 priests, from the cloister issued bands of holy laborers, whose extraordinary wisdom and skill helped the bishops to foster piety among the people, to train youth to the knowledge of letters and the practices of a virtuous life. " Of the missionaries sent to preach the Gospel to bar barous countries, the raajority have been furnished by the monastic communities in France. Their labors in the cause of Christianity have spread the name of France with the light of the Gospel to the remotest nations of the earth. "There is no sort of misery which can befall our com mon humanity that these religious men and women have not alleviated, no form of calaraity known to us that they have not reraedied — in hospitals, in asyluras for the poorest of the poor, during the periods of peace and leisurely en joyment in civil coraraunities as well as araid the heat and turmoil of war. And all these ministrations they per formed with that pitying gentleness which can only spring from divine charity. Of this charity you have before your eyes illustrious examples in every province and city and village." The Pope then enumerates the testimonies given by leading men of every class to the merits and services of the Religious Orders. It was all in vain. Vainly also did the magistrates resign their seats upon the bench of justice. Equally vain were the reraonstrances and protests of the French bishops. Nothing could save the dooraed corarau nities. The Jesuits, the Pope says, were the first expelled. "The nuncio in Paris was ordered to protest, and to declare that the Society of Jesus is not only guiltless of any crime, but deserving of all praise on account of the exalted merit of its merabers, for their learning, their charity, their zeal in educating youth. All France bears witness to their worth by entrusting its children to their care." The nuncio's protest having produced no effect on the government, the Holy Father was about to raise his voice in remonstrance, condemning the acts of the persecutor, when it was proposed to him that the Religious Orders might be saved from suppression and dispersion if they 5o8 LIFE OF LEO XIII. would only unite in drawing up and signing a solemn decla ration and pledge to the effect that they had no part and would have no part in pohtical movements, and adhered to no political party. This, the Sovereign Pontiff thought, violated no princi ple of Catholic doctrine or raorality, while it would avert from the Church of France a measureless calamity. It would also wrest frora the enemy a ready and powerful weapon of attack. The proposal of such a pledge, however, fell like a bombshell araong the justly alarraed and excited French Catholics. Their organs in the press discussed its oppor tuneness, its necessity, and its consequences with extreme warrath, the result of strong and sincere convictions. The Holy See, anxious to save the mighty religious in terests so seriously threatened in France, did not look with disfavor on such a united declaration. As a basis on which should repose this profession of neutrality as between mere conflicting political parties and opinions, the Pope sketches the nature and aim of raonastic life. Their utter unworld- liness in the raidst of the world, and the sublime services which their spirit of detachment enables them to render, ought to protect them frora the suspicion of worldly pas sions or political partisanship. "A thing well and farailiarly known to this Apostolic See," he says, " is the purpose for which, in the Catholic Church, raen or women unite together to form religious so cieties. There is, first of all, the desire to promote in the members themselves the practice of spiritual perfection in the highest degree. As to the outward form of active life selected for itself by each order, their only aim is to help to secure the eternal salvation of their fellow-men or to aid in relieving the various forras of huraan suffering. This two fold course of activity is daily pursued in each order with raarvellous assiduity and cheerfulness." So much for the character of Religious Orders as such. Now, what should or might be their attitude toward the civil constitution and the political parties in the state? THE CATHOLIC CIIURCH AND CiVIL GOVERNME.VTS. 50^ " The Catholic Church neither blaraes nor condemns any form of state constitution. The institutions of the Church herself, deriving their origin from purposes of public utility, can flourish under any government, whether the executive or judiciary power be exercised therein by one or by raore. As to the Apostolic See, which has to raaintain relations with governraents in the midst of political changes and revolutions, its sole purpose is to secure the interests of the Christian religion. It never intends, nor can intend, to vio late the rights of any governraent, no raatter by whom ad ministered. It is, therefore, certain that in all things where we do no injustice to others we should obey those in au thority. Nor by so obeying do we sanction whatever is wrong, either in the constitution or in the adrainistration. "Such being the rules of public conduct enjoined on all Catholics w-ithout distinction, there could be no objection to the declaration demanded of the Religious Orders. " But it is not a little surprising that a proposal of this kind, entertained at a moment when the very weightiest in terests w-ere at stake, and for the purpose of saving both Church and state, should have found little favor with men otherw-ise estiraable and known for their talent and zeal in defending Catholicisra." The controversy raised on this point was a sore matter on both sides of the Alps. What rendered the opposition of the journalists alluded to most distasteful to the Holy See was the fact that the declaration in question had the sanction of the French bishops. It turned out, nevertheless, that this negotiation was only a trap laid by the government to create dissension in the Catholic ranks, to elicit expressions of opinion and sen timent that raight enable MM. Ferry and Bert to strike with more visible grounds of justice such coraraunities as would prove to be unyielding. The Holy Father confesses the failure of this sort of compromise. " It is most sad to say," the letter goes on, "that the French government pursued its intended course. Every day brings us sad news from that country. The re- 510 LIFE OF LEO XIIL maining Religious Orders are scattered and suppressed. The fresh calaraity thus befallen France, and which she herself keenly feels, fills us with the deepest concern, the raost intense anxiety. We detest and deplore the wrong done to the Catholic religion." There was just cause for all the fears of the Pontiff. Nothing could arrest the progress of the decatholicizing spirit in France — nothing but the fear of a civil war. Of this, however, there was no danger. The Catholics — the nominal Catholics at least, who were in overwhelming ma jority — allowed every constitutional agency for asserting their own will to be taken from them by their determined, sleepless, unscrupulous, and energetic enemies. The public offices, from the highest to the lowest in the state, the ballot-box, the parliamentary representation, the command of the army and navy — all was taken away from them by degrees, and that because they lacked union and organi zation. It is one of the saddest spectacles of modern times to see thirty millions of French Catholic citizens virtually dis franchised, oppressed, and deprived of their most precious religious liberties by a small minority, because they did not know how to forget their political dissentiments, to unite like one man to assert their rights, and to use every means allowed by the constitution and by conscience to withstand the usurpations of a godless minority. What is raost saddening in this condition of a nation which had played so glorious a part in Christendom is to see the downward progress of Socialisra and Anarchism keep a steady pace with the legislative and administrative mea sures which, step by step, dechristianize every one of the public institutions of France, and bring the Church within the jurisdiction of the republic to a worse state, in many respects, than it was in 1794 and 1795- What intellectual and raoral poison has perverted the judgraent of Frenchmen, naturally so quick and penetrat ing, or so deadened their naturally noble disposition as to make them form so false a notion of freedom, and to mis- SAD CO.VDITIO.V OF FRENCH C.I THOLIC S. 5 I 1 take its dictates in practice for an injunction to oppress all who differ from themselves in opiinion ? It is a problem. And it is a pity. But it is none the less all too true. And this intolerance, this unnatu ral, fanatical intolerance, of all that is religious or godly, or morally fair and noble, is at present the bane of France. Liberty interverted into meaning, in practice, the freedora for one's self to think and act as one pleases, but to stran gle free thought and free action in others, is bringing on — has, rather, already* brought on— Communism in France, and will soon bring on anarchy and a second division of France. If the nations round about had combined and sworn to divide France, ungoverned and ungovernable, as was once done w-ith unhappy Poland, they only have to wait patient ly for the outcome of the present raad race to destruction. If things go on, within another decade the forraer kingdom of St. Louis will be without a single form of tolerated pub lic worship, without a single cathedral devoted to religion; the country which, under Napoleon I., dictated laws to Eu rope, will have neither an effective arm}' to defend her fron tiers nor a fleet to guard her coasts. That is what the " party of action " in the governraent and the legislature are bringing the country to, as certainly as the yellow waters of the Tiber will find their way to Ostia and the Mediterranean. And this is what we Americans — and we Irish-Ameri cans in particular — pray God with all our heart to avert from misgoverned France, so dear to us for raany reasons. Leo XIII. has been and is still severely blaraed by many French Catholics for what they consider his policy of unwise and fatal conciliation. It is a strange censure, seeing that the Holy See, in the circumstances which we have been describing, must choose between firm reraon strances, representations, and endeavors to conciliate, or band all French Catholics together in a great and com- * March, i886. 5 1 ^ LiPe op Leo XIIL pactly organized national league, showing to the govern ment and the radicals behind thera a solid and unbroken front, resisting every raeasure of suppression, of confisca tion, of encroachment on religious liberty by determined, united, and constitutional action. But would French Ca tholics have so united at his bidding? Who among the Catholic leaders of France, lay or clerical, suggested or initiated the formation of such a league? Now that the mischief has been done, and that all constitutional safeguards possessed by the Catholic Church in France are being swept away one by one, till the very cathedrals are allowed to fall into ruin previous to their being confiscated, it is too late to look back and say what should have been done, when all raen knew what MM. Ferry and Bert meant, and what was really intended by the parliamentary raajority behind thera. It was for the French Catholics themselves, constitut ing the great mass of the nation — for bishops, priests, and layraen — to corae together, to take counsel, as they did in Germany at the approach of danger. It behooved them in presence of the enemy to forget all private or local differ ences, all party feuds ; to forget that they were Legitimists, Orleanists, Bonapartists, or Republicans, and to remember only that they were Christians. It behooved them, speak ing in the name of a Catholic nation, to draw up a declara tion of rights, every line and word of which should com mend itself to the approbation of Rome and the applause of every civilized man all over the world in favor of liberty of conscience and the sacred laws which guard the family, the home, the school, and the Church. They should not have waited for any invitation from the Sovereign Pontiff to do so. It was their acknowledged right, and it was the sacred duty of the hour, to do so. There is no use in denying it, the fatal dissentiments and bickerings which had so long divided French Catholics among themselves, and which still found vent in the reli gious press, kept minds and hearts and raen asunder, while the coraraon foe, the eneray of religion and social order, CARD. GUIBERT' S LETTER TO PRESIDENT CREvy. 513 was storming the outw-orks of the citadel of faith. When these had been swept away, did the Catholics unite like one man to defend the very heart of their position ? But after the elections of 1885, when every priest who dared to advise his parishioners to \-ote for a Catholic can didate in opposition to a Radical or government raan was punished by losing his salar}-, and when a new school-law was passed disqualifying all persons belonging to religious communities for teaching in primary schools, the venerable Cardinal Guibert, Archbishop of Paris, broke silence, and w-rote to the President of the Republic the following letter, which describes the exact situation of the Church in France with regard to the so-called Republic : "Paris, March 30, 1886. " To the President of the Republic : " Mr. President : The Church of France is passing through a period of painful trials. She complains of being made the object of rigorous treatment by the state ; and the state accuses her of having called forth such rigor by setting herself in opposition to the governraent which the country has chosen for itself. As the conflict grows daily in bitterness you will not be surprised if the oldest araong the French bishops, he in whose diocese the governraent has its seat, addresses hiraself to you as the chief executive, and conveys to you, together with his respectful protes tations, the just complaints, which are, I doubt it not, in conformity with the general sentiment among ray brother- bishops. " How can we allow the public to give credit, through our silence, to accusations which entirely raisrepresent our attitude and can only lead public opinion astray ? Up to this raoraent the French clergy have given proof of a patience and raoderation that deserve higher praise than that of being called exe:raplary. Wishing before all things to maintain peace, and thereby to obey the wise directions given by the Sovereign Pontiff, they have uncoraplainingly endured rauch injustice. They have only raised their voice 514 LLFE OF LEO XIII. to defend the spiritual interests of their flocks, the teach ing of religious doctrine, the necessities of public worship ;. and in so doing they have shown temper and moderation, deraanding only of the public authorities that they should be shown the same justice and kindness so honorably granted them by preceding governraents. " They have been reproached with having, during the last elections, been favorable to the opposition candidates. If there be truth in this accusation, we can affirra that poli tics had no influence on the rainds of the electors, who, in voting, only thought of the result the ballot-box would have on the interests of religion. " There were two classes of candidates — one class com posed of persons who wished to preserve religious instruc tion, to protect freedora of worship, and to favor Christian good works ; the other class were those who announced openly their intention of extinguishing at once, or in the very near future, the Catholic faith araong us. Who would hold it to be a crirae in priests to show a preference for the former? It was a conscientious duty to do so, and a fulfil ment of the mission received by them frora the Church, and, one might say, from the state itself. " No ; the clergy never have made in the past, nor do they make at present, a systematic and hostile opposition to existing institutions. If they show either coldness or uneasiness, these dispositions so loudly complained of only becarae manifest when the representatives of the govern ment joined hands openly with the eneraies of religion. If the republic would only accept the obligation incumbent on all governments of respecting the belief and the wor ship of the iraraense raajority of our countryraen, nothing in the teaching of the Church or in her traditions could have justified a priest in distrusting the republic or in opposing it. But if the men who have taken on them selves to establish these political forms in France have at the same time made it their task to wound all raen's con sciences, if every year of their sway has been remarkable for sorae blow airaed at one or other of our Catholic WHAT THE CHURCH HAS SUFFERED IN PRANCE. 515 institutions, how, I ask again, can churchmen be blamed for preferring those who protect them to those who plunder them, those who respect their ministry to those who vilify it, those who favor the influence of religion on men's rainds to those who labor to destroy it? " To the prejudiced, who still wonder at the conduct of the clergy, I would sa}' : Read over the records of the last five years. In 1880 the Religious Orders are dispersed on the authority of contested laws and without having ob tained judgraent frora the courts. At the sarae time trea sury laws, w-hich impose a heavier burden every year, fall oppressively on coraraunities of religious woraen, regardless of the immense services the}' render to the poor, to the sick, to the youth of the country. In 1882 a school-law blots out religion frora the programme of public instruction, and inflicts on Christian France, under the name of neutrality — a name hitherto unknown — the stigma of official atheism. Year after year the budget of public worship is cut down. In the space of five years there is a reduction of seven mil lions of francs. The salary of the bishops is dirainished, those of the cathedral canons are threatened ; the burses in the seminaries are stricken out of the estimates ; the cathe dral churches are refused the subsidies necessary for the dignity of public worship and the repair of their buildings ; the assistant pastorships are suppressed by the hundred. In every locality where the raunicipal officers becorae the tools of anti-religious passions, the government follow in their wake, tolerating or sanctioning the most unlawful usurpations. " Thus it is that the ministers of religion are excluded from the hospitals which depend on the state or on the municipality ; the funeral of a celebrated writer, who had refused the prayers of the Church, serves as a pretext for profaning a Christian temple bearing the name of the patron saint of Paris ; and, lastly, the parish priests, those lowly servants of the people in our villages, are treated with no less injustice. The poor salary which represents the sacred debt of the nation toward the Church ceases to 5 1 6 LLFE OF LEO XIII. be assured to the priest who faithfully discharges his obscure duties. To denounce him to the authorities — an act mostly inspired by hatred or by private interest — suffices to make him lose it. He is visited by an excessive punishment which no law authorizes, and which is preceded by no trial. " Five years have sufficed to heap up all these violences. The present year had in store for us a reserve of no less sor- rowful surprises. While people are expecting the repeal of the law which dispenses the clergy from railitary service, Ave are raade to follow in Parliaraent the debates on another law taking away frora public instruction every Christian characteristic. " During these debates we heard the Minister of Public Worship attacking, in his speeches, the fundaraental doc trines of Christianity. " Ten years ago it was said, ' Clericalisra is the national eneray,' and beneath the arabiguity of the terra the man who used it purposely veiled the intention which he did not dare to avow openly. At this raoraent such a pre caution is needless. The objects of direct attack are the honor paid to the Blessed Virgin and the doctrine of Origi nal Sin. To justify the perpetual exclusion of teachers be longing to coraraunities frora all public schools, the govern ment declare that these teachers, precisely because they are Catholics, would teach doctrines which the state cannot tolerate from the lips of masters paid by it. " In very truth, Mr. President, I cannot help asking my self what we are corae to. Has the Concordat been abro gated, or is it still in force? It is easy to see that the Minister of Public Worship favors the separation of Church and state, but that he dreads the consequences for our ¦existing institutions, and wishes to prepare public opinion for it. Doubtless it is because he wishes the better to pre pare people for the breaking up of the corapact that he be gins openly to violate its clauses and its spirit. " The seventeenth article of the Concordat foresees the case in which the First Consul might have a non-Catholic successor, and stipulates that in this case the rights and the AN APPEAL TO PRESIDENT GREVY. 517 prerogatives mentioned in article sixteen and the nomination to bishoprics should be regulated by a ttew convetition. So, in the thought of the two parties to the Concordat, the pre rogatives granted to the chief of the French government were subordinated to the condition that he should profess the Catholic faith. And now here is a rainister of this government, the very personage who, on his own responsi bility, exercises the prerogatives granted by the Concordat, and he raakes speeches against the Catholic belief ! If he is to be believed, the state owes it to itself not to perrait in its schools the teaching of the dogmas of our faith ; and yet the state continues to nominate our bishops, who are the guardians of that faith ! " Mr. President, I appeal to your reason and your im partiality. Have I, in what I have just said, done any thing but note facts well known and official? And can any one dispute the conclusion to be drawn from thera, and which may be thus formulated : The Catholic clergy have not made any opposition to the government, which, dur ing these last six years, has never ceased to persecute the clergy, to weaken Christian institutions,' and to prepare for the suppression of the Christian religion itself ? " It is certain, Mr. President, that the constitution which frees you frora responsibility leaves you the full en joyment of your raoral influence. Your age, your great experience, your old devotion to the republican cause, the confidence again pledged to you by the National Asserably — all this, by heightening your authority, seems to ask of you to interfere in the difficult situation which has arisen. It is your right to warn those who share with you the bur den of power, and to point out to them the consequences of their dangerous policy ; they could not, without betray ing levity or rashness, help yielding to your wise counsels and having a regard for your serious observations. " Allow, then, an old bishop, who has seen, during his own hfetime, the pohtical forras of his country changed seven times in succession — allow hira to say to you for the last time what his long experience suggests. 5 1 8 LIFE OF LEO XIII. " By continuing on the path it is now pursuing the re public can do religion great harm ; but kill it it cannot. The Church has known greater dangers and has passed through worse storras, and yet she lives in the heart of France. She will be present at the burial of those who flat ter themselves with the belief that they will annihilate her. " The republic has received no promise of iraraortality either frora God or frora history. If your influence could induce it to respect raen's consciences, to apply the Con cordat honestly both in its letter and in its spirit, you would do much to restore public peace and to unite men's rainds. If you fail in this atterapt, or if you think it can not be raade, then it is not the clergy nor the Church that can be charged with laboring to ruin the political establish ment of which you are the guardian ; you know that rebel lion is not one of the weapons that we use. " The clergy will continue to endure patiently ; they will pray for their enemies ; they will beg of God to en lighten these and to inspire them with more equitable sentiments. But those who are the authors of this impious war shall work their own destruction by it, and great ruins will be heaped up in our beloved country before it can see once more happy days. " The subversive passions which give many signs of their near awakening will create in your path dangers far more formidable than any of the pretended abuses cast up to the clergy. And God grant that in this fearful storm, where the appetites let loose shall find no moral barrier on their road, we do not see go down together the fortune and even the independence of our native land ! " Arrived at the extreme limit of a long career, I re solved, before having to go before God to give an account of ray administration, to reraove from my own conscience any share of responsibility in the coming disasters. Still, I cannot close this letter without expressing the hope that France will never permit herself to be robbed of those sa cred beliefs which constituted in the past her strength and her glory, and secured to her the foreraost rank araong nations. 520 LIFE OF LEO XIII. " I confide, Mr. President, these weighty reflections to your wisdom and your lofty intelligence, and beg you to accept the homage of my respectful consideration. "J. HiPPOLYTE Cardinal Guibert, " Archbishop of Paris" Here is a prophetic voice frora Paris forecasting the near future of France. It is a description of the iraposing ceremony in the cathedral of Notre Dame on Easter Sun day morning, April 25, 1886, in which some five thousand men received together Holy Communion : " The Communion of the men, as it is called, in the church of Notre Dame, was as imposing on Sunday last as in the best years of the past. The four or five thou sand faithful raen who follow the Lenten lectures and receive Coraraunion on Easter Sunday are not of the class who are influenced in the profession of their faith and. the accomplishraent of its duties by the fluctuations of public opinion. Hence the nave and side-aisles of the cathedral were filled. The singing of the Credo, and of the psalra In Exitu,* and of the hymns drowned the mighty notes of the great organ. Need we say that there was deep recollection among this multitude, and that, assembled there for the raost part long before the hour for Mass, these raen never perraitted theraselves to speak of politics ? " Nevertheless a feeling of uneasiness betrayed itself in the throng, a feeling with which the state of things outside had soraething to do, and which was also observable last year. One might think that Father Monsabre gave an answer to this secret thought of every man there when, in the farewell address after Coraraunion, he spoke of perse cution and the priesthood, and foretold the dark future in store for a people without priests ! What a parallel was that between the brave and generous nation whose warhke epic could be entitled ' Gesta Dei per Francos, ' f and that sarae people lowered, degraded, without God or priests,. * Psalms cxiii., cxiv. f " The Doings of God through the Franks." A PROPHETIC VOICE. 52 I whom the heel of the barbarian would come to crush in the mire of their own corruption ! . . . " Everybody felt it ; the truth of these forebodings is all too certain, and this degradation will come sooner than we think, if France continues to countenance the war — a war as disgraceful to the French name as it is irapious in its nature — which the Revolution is waging against God ! " * * L' Univers. CHAPTER XXXII. " THE CHURCH FREE IN THE FREE KINGDOM OF ITALV " — LEO XIII. AND THE SPOLIATION OF THE PROPA GANDA. ' I ' EO XIII.'s passionate love for higher studies would , * ^ not permit him to overlook the glorious mission ary school of the Propaganda — that Collegium Urbanum, so called from its great-souled founder. Pope Urban VIIL, to which the select youth of all countries and races are sent to receive gratuitously the highest education, and from which they return to their native land to be the apostles of their fellow-countrymen and the promoters of Christian civiliza tion. Never since Christianity itself began to gather the na tions into the fold of Christ was any institution so admi rably devised as this Urban College to typify, realize, and foster the great idea of the brotherhood of all men in Christ, and to propagate this great doctrine and its bene fits among every tribe of mankind. Before the occupation of Rome by the Piedmontese in September, 1870, it was the custom in this great school of practical brotherly love to hold yearly, on the Feast of the Epiphany — regarded as the anniversary of the conversion of the Gentiles — an " academy," in which the students, young men of every race and tongue, were wont, in presence of the Sovereign Pontiff, his court, the Sacred College, the diplomatic corps, and all that was raost distinguished in Rome, to give specimens of their proficiency. It was a rare spectacle. As, however, Leo XIII. could no longer go to the Col lege of Propaganda, as in the days when Rome was the free AN ANNUAL ACADEMY OF THE PROPAGANDA. 523 city of the entire Christian worid, he resolved that the an nual acaderay should be held in the raost raagnificent apart ment in the Vatican, the Consistorial Hall. We give the following account frora an e}-e-witness of the proceedings on Januar}- 6, 1880: " The Consistorial Hall was arranged with a throne at one side, . . . and with seats for the cardinals and ambas sadors placed in a circle, with rows of chairs extending at either side for the prelates and privileged persons permitted to be present. Mustafa and the gentleraen of the Sistine choir occupied part of the upper end of the room, and sang sorae beautiful pieces of rausic with exqui site skill. " Leo XIII. entered the hall at a quarter-past ten, at tended by iVIonsignor Cataldi, prefect of Pontifical cere monies, his major-domo and master of the Camera, his pri vate chamberlains, Boccali and Castrocane, the Marquis Serlupi and Prince Antici-Mattei, and several cardinals. The seats for the corps diplomatique were occupied by the ambassadors or ministers of France, Spain, Portugal, Mon aco, Bolivia, and other states. " The proceedings commenced by the reading in Italian of a prolusion by the Rev. Michele Camillieri, of Srayrna, and then followed the recitation of poetical corapositions in forty-nine different languages, including Hebrew, Chal daic, Coptic, Arabic, Turkish, Kurd, Cingalese, Tartar, Ar menian, Persian, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Akka. Twenty-one languages of Asia and Africa were spoken in the first part of the accademia by young men of color, ranging from the pale yellow of natives of the Lebanon or Mesopotaraia to the sooty black of the Nubians and Central Africans. The recitations were interspersed with popular songs in Chaldee, Arabic, Kurd, Cingalese, Arraenian, and Syriac. "The second part comprised recitations and songs in twenty-eight languages of Europe, including Greek, Geor gian, Keltic, Bulgar, and Roumanian. The accaderaia was closed by the benediction given by the Holy Father, and at half-past twelve P.M. the asserablage broke up. To this 524 LIFE OF LEO XIII. disputation were admitted deputations from the students of the ecclesiastical colleges in Rome." * Of course this academy, intended to represent the great family of all nations and languages belonging to Christ's fold, does not give any idea of the severe course of sacred and secular studies which the pupils of the Propaganda have to follow during their training in Rome. But the above description affords the reader a glance at the truly Catholic composition of the school itself, and hints at the large and practical humanitarian spirit which presided at the foundation of such an establishment and still continues to watch over and direct its progress. This is not the place to speak of the Propaganda Library, nor of its presses, which print books in the principal lan guages of every continent. We were only anxious to place before the general reader's eye one of these great nurseries of the apostolic spirit which have contributed iramensely to the Christianizing and civilizing so raany barbarous nations, and toward spreading and raaintaining, wherever the Eng lish language is spoken, the Catholic faith in its purity and integrity. Non-Catholics, indeed, are not expected to view with sympathy these great seminaries for Catholic missionaries. But Protestants have been most generous in their praise of the Propaganda and its dependent colleges, as well as in ?Letter in the Dublin Freeman's Journal, dated Rorae, April 18, 1880, quoted in the " Chair of Peter,'' p. 1 39. The "ecclesiastical colleges" here mentioned, and maintained by the Propaganda, are : the Germanic College, the Teutonic College, the English College, the Collegio Pio-Inglese, the Irish College of Santa Agata, the Irish Franciscan College of St. Isidore, the Scotch College, the Polish Col lege, the Illyrian College, the Collegio Pio-Latino for Spanish America, the North American College for the United States, the Greco-Ruthene College of St. Athanasius, the College of St. Gregory, the College of St. Pancratius for the Discalced Carmelites, the College of St. Peter in Mon torio for the Observantines, that of San Bartolomeo on the Island for the same, the College of St. Anthony of Padua for the Minors-Conven tual, the College of Capuchins, and that of the Armenians founded by Leo XIII. Add to these a college in course of foundation for the Cana dian confederacy. PROTESTANT ADMIRATION FOR THE PROPAGANDA. 525 acknowledging the extraordinary results produced by the labors of an administration which disposes of less than one- fifth of the pecuniary raeans at the coramand of the Bible and missionar}- societies of England and the United States. At any rate, London or New- York would be proud to own such an establishment as the Urban College, although only one of the colleges directed b\' the Congregation de Propaganda Fide. For the very assemblage of these young students, representing all the tribes of earth, is a soraething which appeals to our Christian affections and our brotherly sympathy for all the descendants of Adam. One would also think that the Italian Revolutionists, who are so loud in prating about progress, culture, civiliza tion, humanity, and universal brotherhood, would feel some pride in possessing in the city of the Popes such a cosrao- politan institution as the Propaganda with its glorious schools. It w-ould seem a liberal, a large-rainded, and a wise policy in the men who wish to restore to Rome and to Itah- sorae thing of the moral, if not of the political, supremacy of former ages, to encourage and foster this missionary spirit and the institutions which embody it, because every one of these sons of Asia, Africa, America, Oceanica, and Austra- ha carries with hira to his native land the raemory and the name of Italy and of Rome. If anti-Christian hate did not blind the present rulers of Rome and the Peninsula to the incomparable means of in fluencing the nations of the earth which they have in the Papacy left sovereign, independent, and free as an integral portion of an Italian confederacy ! If they could be raade to understand that Italy would be far raore powerful, more united, raore respected, raore secure against all foreign aggression and all intestine divisions if the Papacy were left, as it was hitherto, to represent to the world the divine influence of Christian truth and morality, and if the Pope were allowed to be the teacher of all raankind and the su preme director of consciences, without being trammelled by the action or authority of any rival secular power ! 526 LIFE OF LEO XIIL What was happening in 1880 under Leo XIIL, and what had happened under Pius IX., to raar the labors of the Propaganda and to interfere with the prosperity of the great raissionary schools ? In 1874, just when all these youths of the Urban Col lege were working hard to undergo creditably their severe yearly exarainations, the Giunta Liquidatrice, a board es tablished by the new Italian governraent to carry out the laws sequestrating all ecclesiastical property and securing the proceeds of their sale to the state, seized upon the Villa Montalto at Tusculura, the country-house of the Urban College, and put it up for public auction. It was a terrible disappointraent to these young men, who could not return to their native homes to spend the yearly vacation, and who had always enjoyed their well- earned repose araong the cool and breezy solitudes of the Roraan hills, instead of being cooped up within the sultry, sunburned circuit of Rome itself. One would think that, even if the right of the govern raent to seize and sell the villa be conceded, consideration for these foreign youths, who could bring back horae with thera either hatred of the oppressors of religion and the Papacy or adrairation for a large and enlightened apprecia tion of Catholicism and its power in the world, should have made the Giunta Liquidatrice pause or have induced the government to interfere. The Propaganda were taken by surprise, for they did not imagine that the new laws of suppression and seques tration were meant for thera, and the- king, Victor Em manuel, had soleranly declared that the Propaganda and its property were safe frora the operation of these laws. On August 6, 1874, the Propaganda brought the matter before the Roman courts of justice to test the applicability of the law to their property, while the Sovereign Pontiff appealed to the European powers against this invasion of his spiritual mission in favor of the heathen. But the Giunta, secure of the support of the governraent, and well knowing that the law-courts would be raade to sanction the SELZURE AND SALE OF PROPAGANDA PROPERTY. 527 confiscation, sold out the Villa Montalto without waiting for the issue of the suit. The Congregation of Propaganda, knowing that it was useless to contend for justice when this act of spoliation was accomplished, did not push their suit. But the Giunta, sure of the decision of the courts, demanded that it should be proceeded w-ith. The king, however, interfered, not to cancel the sale and to repair the wrong, but siraply to stop the suit. But the government and their subordinates, who, in the interest of the Revolution, were loud in honoring the king as a hero, a great man, "the father of his country," made very little of his wishes or his orders in practice. He was only a tool, which could be laid aside or used as the occasion required. Things were allowed to reraain quiet till after his death. But on June 12, 1881, Signor Morena, a royal commissary, set up to be sold at public auction a number of farms in the country and of city lots belonging to the Propaganda. Both the Propaganda and the comraissary applied to the civil courts in Rome, and on July 5 a decision was given against the former and conderaning the Congregation to pay three-fourths of the expense. It was a hard judgraent. The Propaganda appealed on Septeraber 22. This time the court would not even allow the necessary delay to obtain evidence, and affirmed the sentence of the inferior court, be sides conderaning the Propaganda to pay all the expenses. It is not to be thought that public opinion in Italy was so utterly perverted, or that Italian lawyers had so entirely lost all sense of justice and all honesty and independence in interpreting the laws, as not to utter any reraonstrance against so glaring an iniquity. Many generous protests were heard, but they were of little avail. The Propaganda this tirae had recourse to the Suprerae Court, which invalidated the last sentence and sent the case to be tried anew before the Court of Ancona. Here the Congregation was again conderaned ; and on Deceraber 14, 1881, the case was laid before the full bench of the Court of Ca.ssation, the court of last appeal in the kingdom. 528 LIFE OP LEO XIII. The court, under what pression it were useless to inquire, did not hesitate to stultify and contradict theraselves. Four of the same judges who on May 31, 1881, declared that the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide was an institu tion apart and by itself, sui generis, and unhke any other, and " inspired by a great huraanitarian conception," and that all the preceding laws had, ex proposito, " of set purpose oraitted " to coraprise its property within the scope of se questration or conversion, subscribed the second contradic tory sentence of January 29, 1884, without protestation, or giving any sign that they differed from the majority of the court. The naraes of the other four are raissing among the signatures to the second sentence. The best jurists in Italy openly affirmed that instead of interpreting in a wide and liberal sense the dubious terms of the law in a matter of confiscation and sequestration, the judges in the second decision had so stretched their inter pretation, instead of restricting it, as to include every es tablishment and office connected with the Papacy, without even excepting the Pope hiraself and his household. It was annulling in advance the Law of Guarantees. And what did Leo XIII. say and do in this emergency? On the 2d of March, the anniversary of his coronation, in answer to the address of the College of Cardinals, presented by Cardinal di Pietro, the Holy Father said : " The wishes which the Sacred College expresses on this day, doubly memorable for us, and the prayers it offers to Heaven for us, move our heart in a special manner. . . . The Sacred College, which shares with us the care of gov erning the Church, knows best the need we have both of divine and of ' human aid to strengthen and sustain our weakness. The deep fear which overwhelmed our souls when, without any raerit of ours, we were called to the Sovereign Pontificate, again takes forcible possession of us in this sixth year, which closes now after having taken away frora your raidst sorae of your illustrious members most dear to us, and after having dealt to the Church new blows. THE SOVEREIGN PONTIFF PROTESTS. 529 " For she sees her divine raission beset on every side by difficulties of all sorts and ever increasing in magnitude. More to be deplored than all the others are attacks made on her here in Rome, for they strike her in the very centre of her life, and are directed toward obstructing the action of her Supreme Head. " Bitter indeed to us it w-as to see a harsh judgment fall on an institution which is the honor of the Church, of the Roman Pontificate, and of Italy itself. We mean the Pro paganda. It is easy to see how this sentence decreases the value of its patrimon}-, both because its capital is thereby rendered subject to the changes and instability of a public fund, and because it is deprived of the power of disposing of any portion of its capital, even to meet cases of urgent necessity or to augment them by new pious bequests, with out the interference of a power foreign to it. " But, if we rise to loftier considerations, we discern what the Propaganda really is — an institution of an order altogether beyond the coraraon level, and by its nature in dependent of all lay authority. For it was founded by the Roman Pontiffs in virtue of the supreme apostolic rainistry with which they are invested, and it is directly ordered for the purpose of propagating and preserving the faith in the various parts of our globe, and for fulfilling the sublime mission of the Church to save the world. " For this end the Roman Pontiffs transferred to the Propaganda such an important part of their sublime power; it is by its means that they cause the blessings of redemp tion to reach the raost distant nations. Innumerable re gions of Africa, of Asia, of both North and South America,, of Oceania, and of Europe itself, are indebted to this blessed institution for the light of the Gospel and for the true civ ihzation which the Gospel imparts. ' "And it is precisely to enable the Propaganda to corre spond with their lofty purpose that the Popes themselves bestowed on it ample property and abundant revenues, ex citing by their example and their exhortations the entire Catholic world to do the same. 530 LIFE OF LEO XIII. " It is no wonder, therefore, that raen who were no friends of the Catholic Church have always bestowed un bounded praise on this institution. It is no wonder that its property was spared even by the Iraperial French govern raent, and that the conqueror, who then seeraed the master of Europe, had only great praise and sure protection for it. Such being, therefore, the character of this Papal institu tion, any act which airas at subjecting it in any way what ever to a power external to it, and to place obstacles in the way of its proper action, is a crirae against the liberty of the Head of the Church in the exercise of his spiritual au thority, in the discharge of his apostolic rainistry. " For these reasons of the highest order we feel it to be our duty to lift up our voice and to denounce to the Ca tholics of all nations, who have so many reasons to be in terested therein, the new outrage committed against the Apostolic See. " Meanwhile we shall endeavor, in the best way we can, to provide for the administrative necessities of this vast and raagnificent institution. But in proportion as difficulties in crease around us and as our condition becoraes more intole rable, the raore do we expect the aid of the Sacred College, the raore abundantly do we claim from the faithful all over the world the help of their prayers, of their co-operation, of their generosity. " We thereby hope, my Lord Cardinal, that the wishes you have expressed may be in this way largely fulfilled ; that, in spite of all the efforts of the eneray, the Apostolic See raay never lack the raeans to spread the Gospel and to accoraplish the work of the apostleship." While the whole Catholic world was moved by strong indignation against the oppressors of the Holy See, and voices denouncing the thinly disguised robbery of the most sacred institution on earth reached Italy frora every shore, Cardinal Siraeoni, the venerable Prefect of the Propaganda, was, under the Pope's direction, taking steps to prevent the funds sent to the Propaganda by the pious zeal of Catholic peoples frora coraing to Rome. The first act of spoliation A SECOND PROTEST. 53 I diminished by fully one-third the revenues in Italy of tho great institution. No one could foresee the day when the institution itself would be suppressed, or its revenues so crippled and their management so hampered as to render them unavailable. A consistoi}- was held on March 24, and, encouraged by the general reprobation w-ith which the decision of the Court of Cassation and the conduct and speeches of Signor Man cini, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, had met with in Eu rope as well as in -\merica, the Hoh- Father did not hesi tate to stigmatize the act of spoliation and the curtailment of his own spiritual freedom in words to which people listen ed w-ith respect and s}-mpathy : " When the storms of rebellion, whose fierce attacks were directed against the civil principality of the Roman Pontiffs and for the conquest of this city, had achieved its purpose, both our predecessor, Pius IX., and ourselves raised our voices and used our utmost exertions to protect and to vindicate the rights of the Apostolic See, in accord ance with the strict obligations of our office. With the same firmness of purpose, as the Revolution went on its course, every tirae we saw injustice coraraitted we took on ourselves to protect truth and justice violated ; raore espe cially have we, in so far as our firraly resisting could do so, done our best to beat off the violence so long done to us. ¦ Nevertheless, by a mysterious perraission of God, that terrible storra had but a brief interval of subsidence. We scarcely need say it, especially to you, Venerable Brothers, who have the daily experience of what we describe. Our enemies lose not a raoment, in the carrying out of their own plans, to establish themselves here on a firm footing, arrang ing and disposing all things in such a manner as to raake people think that they have taken possession of Rome by the best of rights and that they mean to hold it for ever. To this purpose is directed their well-weighed and clever manner of proceeding; a succession of incidents brought about by a well-calculated series of causes; the care which they take to gain at home the good will of the people, and 532 LIFE OP LEO XIII. to obtain friends and allies abroad — in a word, every artifice is used which can serve to enable them to obtain and to keep a firm grasp of their power. " The more, therefore, these men labor to ruin the in terests of the Church and the Papacy, the more are we bound to protect thera ; and, for this reason, in this solemn asserablage we to-day once more reprove and condemn everything that has been done to the injury of the Apos tolic See, and we declare, moreover, that we are resolved to see all its rights preserved undiminished to all future time. Nor in this are we influenced by the arabition to reign or the desire of earthly possessions — raotives which some per sons attribute to us with equal silliness and impudence. We are only moved by the consciousness of our duty, by respect for our oath, by the examples of our predecessors, araong whom were men illustrious for their courage and sanctity, who have displayed, when it was needful, consum mate fortitude and firmness in protecting their temporal power. " In this civil sovereignty, apart from the legitimacy of its origin and the various glorious titles on which it was held, there is a special and sacred form and character, pro per to itself and to be found in no other state, arising from the fact that it is the secure and permanent safeguard of the Pontiff's liberty in the exercise of his august office. Everybody knows that no Pontiff ever lost his civil sove reignty without at the sarae time incurring some loss of his freedom. This is evident in our own person at the present time, subjected as we are to the various uncertain chances of an alien power. The last grievous case in point is that relating to the property of the Propaganda. The affair was intimately connected with the apostolic office of the Sove reign Pontiff, and one so much raore important than mere human matters as is the propagation of the divine wisdom and the eternal salvation of raankind. And yet the prevail ing violence of the present time did not spare that noble in stitution, which had its origin in the munificence of the Popes and was fostered by the generosity of the Christian DIPLOMATIC NOTE TO THE CATHOLIC POWERS. 533 nations. And so "severe was the blow dealt it that wc w-cre constrained to adopt new- measures for its safet}- in the future. "These things are bitter enough. But we feel that there are more bitter still in store for us, and we are ready for them. We know that our eneraies have resolved so to heap w-rong upon wrong against the Roman Pontificate as to drive the Pope to extremit}-. if the}- can. It is a hateful and insane project. If it be, on the one hand, quite con genial to the spirit of those w-ho onl}- labor to serve the wicked purpose of the secret societies, and w-ho are anxious to place the Church helpless beneath the feet of the state, such a design, on the other hand, raust be abhorrent to all who truly love their countr}-, who look upon the Papacy, its pow-er, and its greatness, not with the eyes of preju dice, but as it is in itself ; who consider well the benefits which it has bestowed not only on all nations, but especi ally on Italians, and which it is capable of bestowing in the future." Leo XIII. was not satisfied with this indirect appeal to public opinion. He had, soon after the sentence of the Court of Cassation had been delivered, prepared a masterly exposition of the whole case to be sent by the Cardinal Secretary of State to all the nuncios and diplomatic agents of the Holy See. It is dated February 10, 1884, and was, therefore, anterior to the two addresses just quoted. This document found its way into the public press in both hemi spheres, and was received with raarked favor even by the great non-Catholic daily journals. It certainly contributed ver}- much to turn public opinion against the stupid and blundering policy of the Italian governraent. The Propaganda, the Pope says through his Secretary of State, as is evident frora the authentic, docuraents which recite the facts of its foundation, must be " considered as an emanation of the supreme apostolic office of the Papacy ; it must, therefore, in its sphere of action, be considered as an eminently cosmopolitan institution ; its purpose is to propa gate the faith — that is, the truth ; the means generously 534 LIFE OF LEO XIII. bestowed upon it should be employed, in accordance with the pious will of the donors, in carrying out such a design. Hence it is that the patrimony of the Propaganda is the property of the entire Catholic family. " Such considerations easily prove that the Propaganda represents the most splendid and efficient creation of the Papacy for the purpose of preparing ready for use and em ploying the principal raeans adapted to the fulfilment of the divine mission given it to propagate the faith and civiliza tion among all nations. " As to the manner in which the Propaganda has an swered to the purpose of its founders, we have proof of it in the annals of the missions it has directed, which record the prodigies wrought by the Catholic apostolate from Thibet to Scandinavia, from Iceland to China, and particu larly in the East and West Indies. " Writers, even non-Catholic writers, have acknow-ledged that the assimilating action issuing from that centre and radiating to the remotest countries has everywhere been productive of the peaceful conquests of religion and of civilization. " And here, the better to point out the universal charac ter of the Propaganda, we should remark that the Popes labored through that institution for the conversion of idola ters, and also to revive the faith in those Christian countries which the Photian schism and heresy had devastated. . . . " On this point it may suffice to recall the generous en dowment pf Cardinal Antonio Barberini, who founded in the Propaganda twelve scholarships for Georgians, Persians, Melchites, and Copts, seven for Ethiopians, and six f®r In dians and Arraenians. " Now, this is the institution which, by its origin, its character, its action, its property, and its history, shows it self plainly to be essentially one which is oecuraenical and cosmopolitan, that they wish to subject to the private laws of or^Q government, to the judgment of a local tribunal which, by declaring it incapable of juridically possessing property, strips it of the property which it has ! A TOTAL DENIAL OP THE COMMONEST RIGHTS. 535 " It was not enough to compel the Propaganda to con tinue a long suit before the law-courts and to undergo the heavy charges of a costly trial. It was not deemed enough to have forced it to pay enormous ta.xes, which absorb near ly the fifth part of its }-early income, thereby withdrawn from its proper destination. The kind offices of high per sonages were of no avail ; of no avail were the efforts to render its juridical and economical position less intolera ble. No account was taken of the irrefutable arguments alleged in the judicial decisions favorable to it, . . . and which deserved the approbation of all honorable men ; even the will formally expressed of an august personage was not respected after his death ! It raight, in a way, be said that an Occult Force had dictated the spoliation of the Propa ganda, precisely because it is the most splendid embodiment of the Papacy ; and that before the prepotency of that Oc cult Force all the arguments founded on right and propriety lost all their relevancy, all the remonstrances had to give way. " To weaken the force of the foregoing considerations, and to do away with the responsibility of such an odious spoliation, they wish us to believe that the Propaganda will in nowise be injured by the application of the law regard ing the conversion of its immovable property, inasmuch as the revenues of the alienated property are to be set against an equal value of the state funds inscribed in its favor, and the Propaganda, besides, being left free to increase in the future its patriraony by accepting new bequests. " Now, to upset this specious reasoning it is sufficient to reraark that by taking away from the Propaganda the right to hold property, its legal status was rendered worse than that of the lowliest citizen. For if the right to hold property is a guarantee of the independence and respecta bility of all persons living together in any civil community, what an outrage is put upon the Propaganda by declaring it incapable of possessing, and by rendering it dependent on another institution, which pays it, as to a person who has only the use of his property, as it were a half-yearly alms 1 53^ LIFE OF LEO XIII. " But, aside from these reflections of the moral order, it is contrary to the truth to say that the financial condition of the Propaganda is not made worse by the law of conversion. " In what a plight would the Propaganda be if the value of the state funds fell far below par, if the government had to suspend payment, as it has happened in other countries ! Who could guarantee that the yearly income should be paid punctually and in its entirety in the event of a financial crisis, of warlike revolutions, of sinister accidents ? 'Have people forgotten that for the sole reason of reprisals they suspended for many years the payment of ecclesiastical pensions which burdened the properties sequestrated by the Piedraontese governraent ? " Moreover, it is of the deepest importance to bear in raind that the Propaganda, by the special conditions in which it is placed, and to face the extraordinary demands of its oecuraenical action, is not unfrequently obliged to dis pose of a portion even of its capital when its ordinary reve nue is insufficient for its need. Thus did it happen when it became imperative, during the late famines, to come to the help of the Christians of China and Tonquin, and when great sums of raoney were required by the perilous condi tion of the vicariate of Constantinople. " Besides all this, the ever-increasing developraents of Catholicisra among the unbelievers, and the increase as well of the facilities of communication, require the estab lishment of new missionary centres, and with these of semi naries, colleges, universities, apostolic prefectures and vica riates, with regard to which it will suffice to recall the fact that during the glorious Pontificate of Leo XIII. there have been erected eighteen new apostolic vicariates. " Finally, it should be remembered that in the institu tion called the Propaganda we have not only to consider the chief centre of the Catholic missions, but, moreover, a first-class educational and scientific establishment, in which is a flourishing college with upwards of one hundred stu dents, with the corresponding chairs of literature, of phi losophy, of theology and linguistics, and which possesses APPEAL TO THE CATHOLIC POWERS. 537 a very rich librar}-, a ver}- precious museum, and a polyglot printing-office." The Secretai-}- of State then goes on to refute victorious ly the futile assertions of the government officials regarding the securit}- afforded for the collection of the full rental and its increase by new legacies, etc. He then concludes his eloquent arraignment of the spoliators : " You w-ill avail }-ourself of the preceding considerations to draw the attention of the IMinister of Foreign Affairs to the special gravit}- of this last invasion of the rights of the Holy See, of the exercise of the Pontifical power, of the free use of the necessary means for propagating the faith. From these violations }-ou will draw a new argument for making him understand the raanifold outrages and vexa tions which daily render raore painful and alarming the situation of the Suprerae Head of the Church. If reasons of the highest order and influence have been unavailing to prevent a sentence as insulting as it is injurious to the Pa pacy, and regarded as supremely impolitic by the most en lightened men of all parties, it is but too much to be feared that the boldness and the plans of the Revolutionists shall become the ruling power and reduce the Sovereign Pontiff to the greatest straits. " We have meanwhile confidence that the government to which you are accredited will take an efficient interest in favor of an institution which is the chief glory of the Pa pacy and of the Catholic world, and that they will seriously take into consideration whether it can be any longer tole rated that the Sovereign Pontiff should be subjected to such spoliations and violences, which render it for him a matter of extreme difficulty, if not of impossibility, to fulfil his spiritual raission." Outside of Italy the leading organs in the public press stigmatized this act of the Roman government and its Supreme Court as an unjustifiable act of spoliation. The London Times said it was simply and purely an act of con fiscation, quoting as an instance of the working of the Italian law of " conversion " an episcopal see whose yearly revenue 538 LIFE OF LEO XIII. was 60,000 francs before the government took possession of it, and which the process of " converting " brought down to 18,000 francs. This loss really has already befahen the revenues of the Propaganda. In France Le Journal des D^bats repeated the well-known formula that this " conversion " paralyzed the right arm of the Papacy. In Germany and in the United States the great daily papers energetically protested against an act which de stroyed a great humanitarian and international institution. L' Indifpendance Beige, though unfavorable to the Church, said that every state should try to save from " conversion " the college or property belonging to its own subjects. This was done by the United States. CHAPTER XXXIII. LEO XIIL AXD SPAIN — HIS MEDIATION. BEFORE giving a history of the mediation accepted by Leo XIII. between Germany and Spain in rela tion to the possession of the Carolinas Islands it will be of interest to the reader to have a fuller knowledge of the mediatorial office exercised between sovereign and sove reign, nation and nation, almost from the days of Constan tine down to those of Gregory XV. (1621-1623). The bene fits conferred on civilization, on humanit}-, by the action of the Popes, called upon to arbitrate in the most iraportant emergencies, and to end or prevent sanguinary wars by their decisions, have been fully acknowledged by non- Catholic writers of the greatest eminence during the last three centuries. And since we are dealing in this chapter with an act of the Imperial governraent at BerKn, there is a special appro priateness in quoting, in the first place, the words of a Protestant historian, a native of that city, and one of its most illustrious scholars in our day.* " During the raiddle ages," says Ancillon, " when there was no social order, the Papacy alone, perhaps, saved Eu rope frora total barbarisra. It created bonds of connection between the raost distant nations ; it was a coraraon centre, a rallying-point for isolated states. ... It was a supreme tribunal, established in the midst of universal anarchy, and its decrees were sometimes as respectable as they were re spected. It prevented and arrested the despotism of the emperors, compensated for the want of equilibrium, and diminished the inconveniences of the feudal system." f * Johann Peter Friedrich Ancillon, born 1766, died 1837. t Ancillon, "Tableau des Revolutions du Systeme Politique de I'Eu- rope," i. pp. 79, 106, Berlin, 1803. Quoted from Count Murphy's admir able book, "The Chair of Peter," 2d ed., p. 620. 539 540 LIFE OF LEO XIIL What Ancillon taught in Prussia, that the Calvinist Guizot taught in France. " Every one is aware," he says in his sixth lecture on " Civilization in Europe," " that it was by the ' Truce of God ' and numerous measures of the same nature that the Church struggled against the employment of force and de voted itself to introduce into society a greater degree of order and gentleness. These facts are so well known that I am spared the trouble of entering into any detail." To be sure the facts are well known, but our age has a faculty for overlooking or forgetting everything favorable to the Papacy ; because ever since Pius VI. and Pius VII. were carried off to France and imprisoned, while their dominions were confiscated by the unscrupulous conqueror, and since the Revolution consummated in the person of Pius IX. the work of spoliation it had twice begun in his two prede cessors of the sarae name, it has become too often the rule to revive only such meraories of the Papacy as may help the present generation to consider it as the enemy of popu lar liberty in the past, and the great obstacle to the progress of humanity. So did not think one who did, perhaps, even- more than Luther to lower the Papacy in the estimation of mankind — the man who has been justly called the parent of the Revolu tion in its most anti-Christian aspect. Let us hear Voltaire : " The interests of the human race demand a check to restrain sovereigns and to protect the lives of the people. This check of religion could, by universal agreeraent, have been in the hands of the Popes. These first Pontiffs, by not raeddling in teraporal quarrels except to appease them, by admonishing kings and peoples of their duties, by re proving their offences, by reserving excomraunications for great crimes, would have been always regarded as the images of God upon earth. But raen are reduced to have for their defence only the laws and raorals of their country — laws often despised, morals often depraved." * * Voltaire, "Essais," ii. ch. ix. 542 LIFE OF LEO XIII. Another distinguished French Protestant, the contempo rary and friend of Guizot, furnishes an apt commentary on this passage from the philosopher of Fernc}- ; " In those dark ages," says ^I. Coquerel, "we see no ex ample of tyrann}' comparable to that of the Domitians at Rome. A Tiberius was then impossible ; Rome would have crushed him. Great despotisms exist when kings believe that there is nothing abo\e themselves. Then it is that the intoxication of unlimited power produces the most fearful crimes." * But superior in learning and in the esteem of the two last centuries is another great German Protestant, whose testimony ma}- aptly conclude these quotations : "I ha\-e seen something," Leibnitz says, "of the pro ject of M. de Saint-Pierre to maintain perpetual peace in Europe. . . . M}- idea would be to establish, ay, even in Rome, a tribunal (to decide controversies between sove reigns), and to make the Pope its president, as he really in former ages figured as judge between Christian princes, But ecclesiastics should, at the same time, resume their an cient authorit}', and an interdict or an excommunication should make kings and kingdoms tremble as in the days oi Nicholas I. or Gregor}- VIL" + This great man, rising above ever}-thing like narrow sec tarian views, and having in mind only the general welfare of Christendom, and, through Christendom, the interest and progress in true civilization of the entire human race, thus speaks of the exercise of the Papal supremacy ovei Christian peoples and their rulers: " Thus Christ reigns, conquers, commands, since his, tory shows that most of the Western nations have with earnest piet}- submitted themseh'es to the Church. Nor dc I dispute whether or not these things are of divine right It is clear that the}- were done with unanimous consent * Coquerel, " Essai sur I'Hist. Generale du Christianisme," p. 75 Paris, i,S2,S. f Leibnitz, " Opera,'' v. p. 65, He -was the founder and first presiden of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin ; died November 14, 1716 AFFAIR OF THE CAROLINAS ISLANDS. 543 that they could be done with perfect propriet}-, and that they are not opposed to the coramon w-elfare of Christen dom. For it not unfrequentl}' happens that the care and salvation of souls are identified with the common good." * Leibnitz, in thus desiring to see the Christian family of nations preserved frora the despotisra of sovereigns on the one hand, and the awful calamities of war on the other, must have had in raind two memorable instances of appeal to the mediatorial office of the Papacy, at the close of the fifteenth century and toward the end of the sixteenth. The one was the reference to Alexander VI. of the dispute between the sovereigns of Spain and Portugal concerning the limits of their possessions in the recently discovered New- World ; the other was the raediation invoked by Russia in the reign of Pope Gregory XIII. (1572-83), and of which we have extant so authentic and interesting a nar rative. f Whatever Leibnitz raay have thought, Protestant and German though he was, of reviving as one of the weapons of international Christian law the usage of interdicts and excommunications toward refractory princes and their sub jects, it is certain that such revival is not wished for at Rome or by the Catholic world. But the restoration, in practice at least, if not in public law, of the mediatorial office of the Papacy would be an unmitigated blessing. And this conclusion is most eloquently demonstrated by the action of Gerraany and Spain in the affair of the Carolinas, and the prorapt and peaceful solution arrived at by Leo XIIL The group of islands in the Pacific Ocean know n as the " Carolinas and Palaos Isles " had been first discovered by Spanish navigators and naraed by them. Although their remoteness frora the ordinary highways of ocean travel, * Leibnitz, 'Tractatus de Jure Suprematus,'' part iii. — G. G. Leibnitzii " Opera Omnia," vol. iv. p. 299. 6 vols. 4to, Geneva, 1768. \ See in Revue des Questions Historiques for January, 1885, Pierling's " Un Arbitrage Pontifical au XVIfeme Sifecle ; Mission Diplomatique de Possevin 4 Moscou." 544 LIFE OF LEO XIII. and their comparative insignificance in a comraercial point of view, prevented any serious effort at colonization, still the conversion of their inhabitants to Christianity was al ways an object of practical zeal for the Spanish mission aries. To the interrupted and unsuccessful attempts made to enlighten the natives succeeded a well-organized plan of conversion and a resolve to effect a permanent settlement in the archipelago during the reign of Philip V. This pro ject received a warm encourageraent at Rome, where the Congregation de Propaganda Fide was kept informed of the progress of this settlement and the labors of the mis sionaries. The Popes themselves, in their commendatory letters to the Spanish king, praised him for the effective aid given to the ministers of the Gospel in these remote parts. But the long and disastrous War of Succession, brought about by the fact of a grandson of the powerful French king inheriting the Spanish crown, and thereby threaten ing to make France raistress of the Peninsula and of Spain's transatlantic erapire, ended in utterly destroying the Span ish power and sweeping her ships frora the seas. The mis sion to the Carolinas and Palaos Islands was forcibly aban doned, and so was the project of a solid and permanent colonial settleraent. Practically, therefore, whatever may have been the right of dominion acquired to Spain by discovery and first occu pation, the Carolinas Islands in 1870, at the birth of the new German Empire, were in the position of forsaken lands, which become the property of the first raan who settles on thera and by settleraent establishes a proprietary right. United Germany, under the imperial sceptre of the house of Hohenzollern, felt and entertained the natural and noble ambition of possessing a powerful military and coraraercial navy, and of opening for the surplus Germanic populations, so long overflowing into the United States, transmarine colonies, where its sons raight seek a home and found an empire like those which emigrants from the British Isles are creating in Southeast Africa, in Australia, in India, and in the Canadian confederation. The opening of the GER.MA.VY DESIRES A COLONIAL E.MPIRE. 545 Suez Canal and the hoped-for speedy completion of that of Panama, the rapid developraent of the Pacific States in the great American Republic, and the brisk trade and rapid in tercourse opened up between them and between Oceania, Australia, Japan, China, and all the peoples of Eastern Asia, were beginning about this period to give to every group of islets throughout the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean a value and importance unsuspected till now. England and France vied with each other in occupying such of the Pa cific islands as had no possessor, or in claiming a protec torate over others. The great paths of travel across the bosom of the great ocean between Araerica and Asia were mapped out. Every speck of land which peeped above the waves in or near these highways of actual or future cora merce and civilization was seized upon by the European maritime powers. The United States alone, satisfied with their broad birthright of the best part of a continent, and with their horaes bordering the shores of both the Atlantic and the Pacific, watched with indifference the greedy rivalry of the Old World empires. England was ever pushing the limits of her possessions in India nearer and nearer to the East Indian Archipelago and the islands which forra the stepping-stones to Australia and New Zealand. The Aus- trahans and New-Zealanders theraselves, enlightened by the dawn of a new era on their own lands and forecasting their great destinies in the future, began to annex the out lying islands in the surrounding seas ; while France, un warned by her diminishing population at home, by the fast- growing strength of her giant neighbor and enemy, and by the internal discontent, divisions, and anarchy begotten by her anti-Christian spirit, legislation, and policy, threw her self on the shores of Cochin China and Tonquin to found an empire which should rival those of England and Russia in the far East. With prospects of growth and prosperity far otherwise than flattering, the great German chancellor looked out for every foothold he could occupy for his countrymen from the Straits of Gibraltar, all along the African shores, to the 35 546 LIFE OF LEO XIII. Indian Ocean and the rayriad islands of the Pacific. Even where the continents offer no roora for new ownership, or where the raost important islands are already covered by some European flag, any one of the almost forgotten or overlooked coral islets are valuable as stations for the fleets which are beginning to traverse the Pacific in every direc tion, England, in the interval between 1870 and 1875, had re marked the importance of the Carolinas and Palaos groups, and so had Germany. In the latter year both powers re solved to occupy the raost favorable positions in this archi pelago, and formally presented a joint note to Spain de claring that they could not recognize her ownership of islands she had so long abandoned. German colonists, on the contrary, had established them selves at several points in the archipelago, and forraed there flourishing plantations and trading-posts. These facts, com ing to the knowledge of the Spanish government and peo ple, did what enlightened self-interest and a spirit of enter prise had failed to do — aroused a determination not to yield to strangers even these remote and certainly forgotten frac tions of the vast colonial empire of Philip II. Spain, un happily, was, like her next neighbor, France, a chronic though it may be an unconscious prey to that terrible and mortal decline implanted by the joint virus of Illuminism and Voltaireanism. The contagion had come from across the Pyrenees. The patient, though her life-blood was poi soned and her strength slowly but surely wasting away, la bored under the delusion of all consumptives — that she was strong as ever, that nothing serious was the matter with her. Her popular masses still believe her the raost powerful of nations. Her pride, therefore, was fearfully aroused when the joint note of England and Germany was presented in 1875- It was stirred to a pitch of uncontrollable fury when in the first months of 1885 the German flag appeared in sove reignty over the waters of the archipelago. The island of Yap was formally occupied. A SERIOUS CRISIS I.V SPALV. 547 On August 14 the Spanish cabinet decided to address an official protest to the Powers ag.iinst this occupation ; and three days thereafter, on August 17, the German gov ernment officially notified them of the act of taking posses sion. The agitation throughout Spain bccanie intense. In Madrid there was a formidable demonstration, and it re quired all the energy of the civil and military authorities to repress the attempts at lawlessness and even open insurrec tion. As time went on, and it was found that Germany would not recede from her position, in which she was sup ported by England, the effervescence grew apace. The na tion, and the opposition press in particulai-, was clamorous for immediate war. Of course the practical good sense of King Alfonso made hira feel that Spain was totally unpre pared to wage war, her army being but ill-organized, her military navy utterly useless, and her finances in an almost hopeless state of confusion. Germany was too far away to be reached by land ; and were she situated at the gates of the Peninsula, she had nothing to fear frora .Spain. So ne gotiations dragged their slow length along, till the tidings reached Madrid of what had happened in the port of Jomil, island of Yap, on August 25, when both a Spanish and a German war-vessel planted simultaneously the flags of their nations and took formal possession of the country. The tidings of this seeming act of hostility reached Madrid on September 4. On the morrow the entire popu lation apparently descended into the streets, attacked and sacked the palace of the German ambassador, tore down the German arras and trarapled them under foot, and burned the German flag with every circumstance of ignominy. It was a raost serious crisis for the brave young king and his governraent. But his was not a spirit to be frightened by a mob, or to be hurried into a bootless war by the sense less cries of the popular masses. Nevertheless, some satis faction must be given to the national sentiment wounded in its honor. The Spanish ambassador in Berlin is ordered to hold hiraself in readiness to ask for his passports at any moment. 548 LIFE OP LEO XIlL Meanwhile, and as the whole civilized world is expecting a declaration of war and the breaking out of hostilities, the happy thought occurs, and is seized upon by both cabinets, of submitting the entire question of the occupation of the Carolinas to the arbitration of the Holy See On Septem ber 24 it is officially announced that the Pope has been offered and has accepted this delicate raission, but one which raay lead to an araicable settleraent of the difficulty, and prevent the effusion of blood and what, to Spain, would have been a most ruinous warfare. Leo XIII. knew and felt the responsibility thus cast upon hira. He was fully alive to the necessity of putting a speedy termination to a crisis which, in Spain at least, was of the most intense acuteness. He deputed to a commis sion of cardinals, the raost eminent jurists and diplomatists in the Sacred College, the examination of the double ques tion of fact and of international law involved in the case, with directions to use the utraost diligence in investigating and reporting. In less than a month, on October 22, Cardinal Jacobini sent to the cabinets of Madrid and Berlin the Pope's deci sion, which consisted in four points on which both govern ments were to agree, the fact of Spain's ancient discovery of the Carolinas and of their occupation by her being laid down as one ground for conciliation, and the liberty of Ger mans in the archipelago to occupy land, develop agriculture, cultivate industry and commerce on a footing of equality with Spanish subjects being also guaranteed, together with a naval station for Germany and perfect freedom of naviga tion throughout the archipelago. Thus Spanish sovereignty and Gerraan interests were safeguarded by the terras proposed from the Vatican. It was an adrairable decision ; it gave satisfaction in both countries to governments and peoples, and all danger of war was averted. The final articles of agreement, drawn up in the Vati can, and accepted for the respective sovereigns by the Mar quis de Fogores and Herr Von Schloezer, their plenipoten- LEO XIII.'S JUDGMENT ACCEPTED A.VD RA TIFIFD. 549 tiaries near the Holy See, were solemni}- signed on Decem ber 17, 1885 — a conclusion which was del.iycd by the dc.tth of Alfonso XII. on November 25. The blessing of a peace thus maintained, and of the c.i- lamities of a ruinous war from which the nation was saved by the moral courage of the }oung soxereign, was the last which Alfonso bestowed on his people. He had wished to save them from the de\'astations of cholera, or at least to sustain and cheer them under its awful visitations, rendered more awful still- b}- the destruction and miser}- wrought by earthquakes, b}- exposing his own life to cxery danger in visiting, consoling, and relieving the sufferers. Immortal honor to his heroic spirit! He was no unworthy heir of Sancho-el-Bravo and of Sancho's grandfather, the greatest of Christian kings, St. Ferdinand. May Spain, wearied and wasted, and sighing for rest and restoration, reap the fruits of such examples and such sacrifices ! But let us glance a moment at this act of raediation of Leo XIII. The relations of the Holy See with both Spain and Ger many in September, 1885, were not a little delicate and complicated. The Spanish government adrainistered by Canovas del Castillo, in spite of its conservative professions, yielded to the radical and revolutionary tendencies of a powerful minority in the legislature and the press, and that on the point raost vital to the real welfare of the nation — the education of youth. The Concordat of 1854, in which it was expressly and soleranly stipulated that the teaching in all the governraent schools of every grade should be strictly in conformity with Catholic doctrine and practice, was openly violated. Indeed, the ministry then in power had gone a step in advance beyond their iraraediate predeces sors in office in this wrong direction. They had sanctioned, in the university and intermediate schools, a system of in struction hostile not only to Christianity but to all positive religion. Besides, the superintendence guaranteed by the Concordat to the Spanish hierarchy over all schools, and the right of visitation inherent in their office, had long 550 LIFE OF LEO XIII. been rendered impossible by royal decrees modifying the Concordat — repealing, rather, its raost iraportant provisions — and that either without consulting the Holy See or in spite of its energetic opposition. So were the political guides of a Catholic people giv ing up to the forces of irreligion which beset them what remained of their institutions round about — the very edu cation of youth, the springs of the national life. In Germany the admirable wisdom and moderation of Leo XIII. had succeeded in winning the esteem of both the emperor and his all-powerful chancellor in obtaining the repeal of the " Falk Law-s," in filling the raost impor tant episcopal sees, long deprived of the presence of a bish op, and in modifying the hard conditions imposed on the parochial clergy by the civil authorities. It was onl}- a beginning in a w-ork of conciliation, resto ration, and reparation which many had despaired of, but it was a great beginning. Both the Emperor William and the great chancellor had discovered that the worst foes of social order in Germany and of the empire wdiich their joint labors had founded were not the seventeen or twenty millions of Catholic citizens it counted. They had also found out that the dogma of Papal Infallibility contained nothing which need alarm the lawful rights of civil sovereignty; the bug bear held up by Dijllinger and his followers to excite the national susceptibilities had long vanished in thin air be fore the light of impartial truth. On the other hand, it w-as found that no denoraination of Christians taught doctrines so conservative of social order, so favorable to the authority of the prince and the raagis trate, so conducive to an enlightened and generous obe dience on the part of the citizen, as the Catholic Church. In the successive criminal attempts raade on his life the venerable Emperor of Gerraany, w-hen the first excitement and alarm were over, had found that the conspirators were neither Catholics nor acting in sympathy with any portion of his Catholic subjects. Catholicism, it gradually dawned on him and his counsellors, was one of the strongest bul- LEO XIII.'S ACCOUNT OF THE MEDIA TION. 55 I warks of his throne, one of the surest safeguards of his life He could trust both the one and the other to the con science, the honor, the devotion o{ his C.Uholic subjects. Moreover, the doctrinal encyclicals successivcl}- i)ub- lished by Leo XIII. were so admiiabl}- conceived, ex pressed, and calculated that the}- could not but force on such minds as Bismarck's the comiction that the Catholic Church alone was the great school of social doctrine, and that her Pontiffs were the only authority in the civilized world which laid down the law of belief and of life for the nations with a power which carried with it the conviction that Rome still spoke the words of Christ. Every encyclical of Leo XIIL, every one of his official acts, raised him ever higher and higher in the esteera of the Gerraan chancellor — no mean judge of men, of their ac quirements, their raotives, and their achieveraents. Nevertheless, the fact that the Protestant Eraperor of Germany and his Protestant chancellor had chosen the Pope as arbiter in this angry dispute about the Carolinas Islands took the whole civilized world by surprise. Would Leo XIII. hold the balance with a firra hand between the two powers ? Could he help remembering that Spain was still Catholic, no matter what might be the inconsistencies of her rulers or the radical tendencies to which her states men yielded ? Could he forget the cruel, the gratuitous persecutions heaped by the Prussian legislature and the Imperial governraent of Gerraany on bishops, priests, and laymen simply because of their fidelity to principle and their attachment to the Holy See ? The extraordinarily prompt decision of the tribunal, so often appealed to in the past by nations and their rulers, first astonished expectant Europe, and then the alraost sira- ultaneous tidings that the decision was acceptable to both the appealing parties completed the surprise. Let us hear Leo XIII. hiraself giving to the cardinals, assembled in consistory, an account of the transaction:* ?Allocution of January 15, 1886. (See Appendix E.) 552 LIFE OF LEO XIII. " We gladly accepted the office thus entrusted to us," he says, " because we hoped thereby to serve the cause of peace and humanity. We therefore examined and weighed in the balance of an irapartial and equitable judgment the arguraents of both litigants, and then we submitted to them certain propositions as a basis of rautual agreeraent, which we hoped would prove acceptable to thera. " Spain brought forward raany reasons in support of her right to that distant portion of Micronesia. She was the first nation whose ships had reached those shores — a fact acknowledged by the raost distinguished geographers. The very name of Carolinas attested the Spanish title. Besides, the kings of Spain had more than once sent thither apos tolic raen as raissionaries, and of this the records of the Roraan Pontificate afford confirmatory proof ; for there ex ists a letter of our predecessor, Clement XL, to Philip V., written in 1706, praising this prince for having equipped and furnished a vessel to convey raissionaries to the Caro linas. In it the Pontiff also exhorts the king to continue to help propagate the Christian name and procure the sal vation of multitudes of human beings. " The same Pontiff also wrote to Louis XIV. beseech ing him not to hinder in any way the carrying out of an enterprise so happily begun by his grandson. Again, Philip V. fixed an annual sura of two thousand crowns to be set apart for the support of these missions. Furthermore, no nation but the Spanish ever did anything to bring the light of the Gospel to these islands. And, finally, whatever in formation we possess of the manner of living and customs of the natives has been furnished by the missionaries. " Frora this series of facts, viewed especially in the light of the international jurisprudence then in vigor, it is evi dent that the right of Spain to the Carolinas Islands is fairly established. For if any claira to sovereignty can be derived frora the labor of civilizing a barbarous country, this claira raust be highest in favor of such as endeavor to reclaim barbarians from pagan superstition to the Gospel morality, inasmuch as in true religion are to be found all THE MEDIATORIAL OFFICE OF THE PAPACY. 553 the most powerful civilizing forces. On this principle were often founded the rights of sovereignty; and this was the case, for instance, of several islands in the ocean, of which not a few bear naraes given them by the Christian religion. "Seeing, therefore, that a constant and well-founded public opinion conceded to Spain the sovereignty over the Carolinas, it is not surprising that when the late dispute began about their possession the whole Spanish nation was stirred with such excitement as to threaten not only the in ternal peace of the kingdom, but to iraperil its relations with a friendly power. " To the arguraents brought forward by Spain, Gerraany on her side opposed others also based on the law of nations — that residence on land is necessary to possession ; that, taking into account the facts of recent history, the law of nations sanctions as legitiraate the claira to ownership of territory when the claimant occupies and uses it ; that where the territory is not so occupied and used the land is accounted as having no owner. Wherefore, considering the fact that the Carolinas had not during a century and a half been occupied by Spain, these islands should have been adjudged the property of the first person taking possession of them. In addition to these reasons it was alleged that some such dispute as the present having arisen in the year 1875, both Gerraany and Great Britain affirmed they did not at all acknowledge the sovereignty of Spain over the Carolinas. " In this divergence of opinions we took into account the respective rights and interests of the two contending nations, and confidently submitted a plan which we thought weH fitted for bringing about a peaceful settleraent of the difficulty. We were guided solely in this by our own sense of equity, and, as you are aware, both parties willingly ac cepted our proposal. "Thus was accoraplished an event which the present currents of public opinion forbade us to look forward to. Providence willed that two illustrious nations should do homage to the suprerae authority in the Church by asking 554 LIFE OF LEO XIII. it to fulfil an office so much in keeping with its nature, to preserve by its action the threatened peace- and harmony between them. This is the fruit of that salutary and benefi cent influence which God has attached to the power of the Suprerae Pontiffs. Superior to the envious jealousy of its enemies, and more mighty than the prevailing iniquity of the age, it is subject neither to destruction nor to change. " From all this, too, it becomes manifest how grievous an evil are the wars waged against the Apostolic See and the lessening of its rightful liberty. For thereby it is not merely justice and religion that are made to suffer, but the public good itself, since in the present critical and change ful condition of public affairs the Roman Pontificate would confer far greater benefits on the world if, with perfect free dom and rights unimpaired, it could devote all its energies to proraoting, without hindrance, the salvation of the hu man race." The concluding words of this brief allocution, affirming solemnly, as they do, the benefits to civilization and human ity which naturally flow from the exercise by the Popes of the functions of mediators between nation and nation, de serve the serious attention of both modern statesraen and modern peoples. Had the burning questions pending be tween the free and slaveholding States of the American Union been submitted to such mediation or arbitration as that of the Sovereign Pontiff before i860, what bloodshed, what desolation, what commercial ruin, what manifold na tional calamities might have been avoided ! Do not say that the religious sense of a Protestant nation would not have entertained the idea of such arbitration ; do not be lieve that there existed not in Rorae statesmen, diplomat ists, jurists, men versed in the historical facts and the con stitutional aspects of our great slavery problem and of the other territorial, legal, and political difficulties connected therewith. Rome, as it then existed — the Rorae of the Popes, with the Papal sovereignty and freedora unshackled — would have constituted a tribunal of arbitration endowed with qualities A BOON TO TIIE NATIONS. 555 and attributes which, for the purposes of an Araerican ap peal, could have been found nowhere else It was the se rious interest and the fervent wish of Pius IX., then reign ing, of the great statesraen and churchraen who surrounded him (as it was, indeed, of the entire Catholic world, as such\ that the Union should be preserved; that nothing should oppose or impair the development of the national life; that slavery should be so gradual!}- extinguished and slave-labor so transformed into free that the South should not suffer in its proprietar}- or agricultural interests, while the certain prospect of such extinction would appease the anti-slavery sentiment of the free States. Neither Great Britain, nor Germany, nor France, nor any other power which we could name, offered, as mediators, the disinterestedness and the absolute fitness for examining and deciding in our case which all must acknowledge in the Papal tribunal. England and France were notoriously desirous of seeing the Union dissolved and the growth of the national power thus crippled for ever. There was then no Gerraan Erapire, no United Gerraany ; Austria never was our friend. Every conceivable interest would have impelled the Pope to set tle our differences without any danger of an appeal to arms, without ruin to the South or loss of prestige or in fluence to the North. It might have been a long negotia tion, but no interested or unnecessary delay would have kept the nation in a state of ferment. And such a plan of settlement and concord would have come from the Vati can as to satisfy both the great political parties, both the sections of the country, and to have enabled the patriotic and generous-minded of all opinions to work thenceforward together for the peaceful and gradual removal of the causes of discontent. Even when nearly two raillions of brothers stood fac ing each other in arras in the terrible conflict, and when Abraham Lincoln was induced to make the steps we know toward peace, had any good angel persuaded the combat ants to suspend their mutual carnage and to submit their cause with all its grievances to one man, the acknowledged 556 LIFE OF LEO XIII. representative on earth of the Prince of Peace, we should have had that peace with honor to both North and South — a peace that should not have left behind the rankhng memories caused by subsequent events. The same reasons hold with regard to the settlement of the Alabama clairas. How little satisfaction the settle ment arrived at has given to either nation, how great and ruinous were the delays attendant upon the assembling and the discussions of the absurdly complex tribunal, and how enormous the costs to both governraents, neither Ame ricans nor Englishraen are likely to forget. The concert of praise which, in the English-speaking world and elsewhere, has been heard after the settlement of the Hispano-German quarrel, is an assurance that non- Catholic public opinion is undergoing deep modifications not unfavorable to the Holy See. The day is not far distant when the government of the United States will find it both wise and politic to imitate Prince Bisraarck in his statesraanlike conduct towards the Prisoner of the Vatican, raaintain an arabassador near him to represent the interests of our growing raillions of Catho lic citizens, and do horaage to the suprerae learning, incor ruptible justice, and fatherly love of peace ever to be found in the Vicar of Christ on earth. Of course the revolutionary press — both in Italy, where it is found necessary to justify the invasion, spoliation, and oppression of the Papacy, and in France, where they are preparing to trample under foot the Concordat — will con tinue to belittle the importance of this act of raediation. Elsewhere the conviction will grow steadily that, in the words of Ancillon quoted at the beginning of this chapter, there should be " a coraraon centre, a rallying-point for isolated states, ... a supreme tribunal, established in the midst of universal anarchy," whose decrees are sure to be "as respectable as respected." One other reraarkable act of Leo XIII. relating to Spain was his bull restoring the pilgriraage to Corapostella. No place on the European Continent, after Rorae itself, THE SHRINE OF ST. JAMES AT COMPOSTELLA. 557 had more attractions for the Catholic heart in ever}- land ah through the raiddle ages than the reputed tomb of the Apostle St. James the Elder at Compostella, in Galicia. The tradition about his relations with Spain was, briefly, this: At the dispersion of the apostles* it fell to the lot of James the Elder to can}- the light of the Gospel to Spain (a.D. 41-42). After founding many churches thi-oughout the Peninsula, James returned to Jerusalem with alms for the afflicted Christians of Palestine, among whom a great famine prevailed. Then w-as held the Council of Jerusa lem, in which Jaraes took part. His death is briefly men tioned in the Acts of the Apostles. Two of his disciples, Athanasius and Theodore, as was the custom all through the ages of persecution, obtained the dead body of their master, and, taking it in all haste and secrecy to the port of Joppa, found there a vessel — a Phoenician merchantraan, very likely — about to set sail for the west coast of Spain. The ocean path-A-ay be}-ond the Straits of Gades were, as schol ars are aware, well known to the Phoenician traders. So they went on their way to the magnificent Bay of Arosa, up which they sailed to Iria Flavia, then an imperial city at the head of the bay, and connected by an imperial highway with Braga, in Portugal, another imperial city. The body rested there for a brief space, and was then carried inland some miles to the site of the present Compostella, where it was buried in a Gallo-Roman tomb, probably that of sorae neophyte, the inscription on it being in mixed Gaelic and * Eusebius, the most ancient historian of the Christian Church, states ("Ecclesiastical History," v. 18), what is also stated by the ancient author of "The Preaching of Peter," quoted by Clement of Alexandria in his "Stromata'- (vi. 5), thnt it was Christ's express wish that the apostU-s should give the benefit of their Iibors to the land of Israel during twelve- years before they dispersed to prearh to all nations. The words quoted by Clement of Alexandria from the Kr/pvyixa Ilerpov are the following: "Wherefore Peter says that the Lord said to the apostles, 'If anyone, therefore, is willing to be led out of Israel by penance, and on account of My name to believe in God his sins will be remitted. After twelve years go forth into the world, lest anyone should say, We have not heard.'" (The substance of this note is taken from " The Chair of Peter," by Count J. N. Murphy.) 558 LIPE OF LEO XIIL Latin. Naturally, Theodore and Athanasius continued in the district the labors begun by the martyred son of Zebe dee, and in due time were gathered to their rest and buried by the side of Jaraes and in the same crypt. Then came the barbarian invasions, wave after wave, blotting out al most every vestige of Christianity and civilization from the land. Iria Flavia was blotted out, and the spot where the apostle and his disciples reposed was forgotten, or, the original Gallo-Roraan population having been swept away, was unknown to the barbarous Suevi who took possession of Galicia. Not till about the year 8x8 did Providence re call the attention of all Spain and all Christendom to the spot where the first of the apostles to lay down his life for Christ had reposed for centuries. But, long before the year and date of this rediscovery, the fact of St. James being buried in Spain was mentioned in the Martyrologies and spoken of by Anglo Saxon authors of note* Alfonso the Chaste, who was then sovereign of Galicia, apprised by Theodemir, Bishop of Iria Flavia, of the wonderful dis covery of the torab, hastened to the spot, and took at once every raeasure to rebuild over the shrine a temple more worthy of it than the primitive Memoria ruined by the bar barians and shrouded in oblivion by time. Around the new church grew the Corapostella of the raiddle ages, which thenceforth, in spite of the fresh ruin wrought by the cruel but resistless Alraansor in that same century, be came the raost faraous place of pilgriraage in Europe, eclipsing for a tirae Rome itselL Calixtus II. , while yet Archbishop of Vienne, in Dauphin6, visited the shrine in the beginning of the twelfth century, and gave a descrip tion of the tomb, the church, the city, the prodigious con course of pilgrims from every Christian land, the splendid ceremonial, the more splendid piety of the great multi tudes, and the raagnificent charity and hospitality of the clergy and citizens toward the wayfarers. Raised to the Papacy, he did all that Pope could do to * See the learned work of Father Fita on the Shrine of Compostella. AUTHENTICITY OF TIIE RELICS. 559 encourage and foster the devotion to the shrine of St. James, and this devotion continued to grow century after century. But, during the reign of Elizabeth, Essex and Raleigh spread terror araong the fleets of Spain. The former sacked Cadiz and committed horrible excesses in the churches. His fleet ascended the Bay of Arosa and then hovered around Coruiia. Then it was that the Archbishop of Compostella sent awa}- into the interior everything holy and precious which could be removed. Taking on himself the task of preserving the relics of St. James and his two disciples frora the possibility of profanation, he descended by night into the crj'pt, took out the remains of the three apostolic men and buried them in the centre of the apse, in a tomb hastily and rudely constructed, and then obliterated all traces of his handiwork. His secret was well kept and died with him. The terror of the English fleets was like a sword suspended over the coast of Galicia till after the arch bishop's death. Meanwhile all access to the crypt had been walled up, and so reraained till, a few years ago, the present cardinal archbishop repaired the cathedral, and resolved, with the assistance of a raixed comraission of ecclesiastics and laymen, to ascertain officially the condition of the tomb and its precious contents. The perquisitions ended first in discovering that the torab was empty ; and next, after the most careful excavation and search in every direction, in coming upon the rude grave in the apse, together with its confused heap of human bones, without a single writing or clue to enable the commission to pronounce as to whom they belonged. Another sub-commission of physicians and scientific men was now appointed for the purpose of exam ining, classifying, and identifying if possible, the fragments thus found. They were pronounced to belong to three different skele tons — skeletons of adult men, one more aged than the others, and all in such a condition and bearing such charac ters as to warrant the belief that they could date some eighteen or nineteen centuries back. A portion of the era- 560 LIFE OP LEO XLLI. niura of one was wanting, that of the oldest; it was the mastoid bone, or back part of the skull, and this had been given long before the time of Essex as a present to the ca thedral of Pistoia in Italy. This relic was carefully exam ined, and its peculiar characteristics were found to conform with the skull just discovered in Compostella. The cardinal archbishop, a learned and scholarly man, felt his way carefully, step by step, and then submitted the conclusions which he and his commissions had arrived at to the judgment of the Holy See. Leo XIII. selected the leading cardinals, members of the Congregation of Rites, to examine all the documents transmitted frora Spain. After a careful scrutiny they decided that some points demanded still further elucida tion, and the Pope, desirous, as his predecessors have ever been in such matters, to leave no tittle of evidence unsift ed, despatched to Compostella the Promoter of the Faith, Monsignor Agostino Caprara, with full powers to swear wit nesses, etc. He thoroughly went over the whole ground, called around him frora Madrid and elsewhere archae ologists, historians, anatoraists, and other scientific men, weighed on the spot every fact and circumstance, reconcil ing seeming contradictions, clearing away doubts, and com pleting a compact body of evidence, with documentary proofs all classified. With this he returned to Rome, and the cardinals with their consultors again began the exami nation of the whole raatter. This time they arrived at a unanimous conclusion — that the remaining portions of the three skeletons discovered and examined by Cardinal Paya and his commissions of scientists and specialists were identical with the remains revered in Compostella since the ninth century as those of St. Jaraes the Elder and his two disciples, St. Athanasius and St. Theodore. As the last chapter of this book is written the Queen Regent of Spain has given birth to a son, who was proclaim ed under the title of Alfonso XIII. The queen besought BIR TH OP A LFONSO XIII. 5 6 1 the Pope to be godfather to the royal infant, to which His Holiness assented. It was thought that the number //r/r- /,?f« was an unlucky nuraber ; but Sefior Moret, the Minis ter of Foreign Affairs, replied to the objectors that if Al fonso XIII. were only as great a king as Leo XIII. was a great Pope, he should consider hira very lucky. And so the young Austrian princess has a long and difficult task before her, to watch over the life and fortunes of her infant child till he is of age to grasp the sceptre which others are now so ready and eager to snatch from a woman's hand. God save Spain ! CHAPTER XXXIV. THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN. IT is the Feast of the Ascension, and there is to be a magnificent celebration at the basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral church of the Bishop of Rome, the Christian teraple first in rank in the world. All Rome is to be there to-day, all the most distinguished artists in Italy, and the very 61ite of her scholars are all most anxious to take part in the solemnities. What extraordinary circumstance thus attracts to the Lateran basilica, at the very extremity of the dustiest and , raost desolate part of Rorae, all the aristocracy of rank and intellect in this raost oppressive weather ? They are throwing open to the public to-day the new apse of the basilica reconstructed, enlarged, and decorated with fres coes and mosaics — a royal work undertaken at the com mand and expense of Leo XIIL, and which, artists say, is one of the most glorious works of restoration in the world. But, the reader will ask, is not Leo XIII. going to ¦officiate in person, in his own cathedral church, on such an ¦occasion ? No ; the Pope, a prisoner in the Vatican, will never set foot within the walls of the Lateran, never glad den his eyes with the sight of the great work of art due to ihis munificence. Besides, on this day — the 3d of May — they are celebrat ing in Rome the death of Garibaldi, his apotheosis, or deifi cation, as the liberal journals call it. The various revolu tionary clubs are ' in the streets with flags and emblems and garlands, and there are to be grand processions. But should Leo XIII.'s carriage appear in the streets, or should he by sorae stealthy way appear in St. John Lat- 562 THE VENERABLE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN. 563 eran this day. Heaven only knows the consequences w hich would follow. No ; the Prisoner of the Vatican could not venture into the streets of Rome — no, not even to officiate publicly in the church of St. Peter's ; how rauch less safely could he pass through all Rorae to pontificate in his own cathedral or to assist at the joyous celebration of to-day ! So we shall go to the Vatican, and spend as rauch as we can of this same Feast of the Ascension with that vene rable man of seventy-seven, who bears so courageously the tremendous weight of an administration which knows not its equal on earth. Here we are in the vast square of St. Peter's. The two great fountains within the opposite semicircles of the col onnade are throwing high into the sultry morning air their flashing waters — the syrabols of the unceasing light for the mind and strength for the will which flow frora that Holy Spirit ever abiding in the Church. We can only give a passing glance at the lofty dorae, glittering in the golden radiance of the Ccistern sun, on the stately fagade, on the middle of which stands Christ holding His cross, while on each side of Him, extending their lines along the church and the mighty sweep of the encircling colonnades, stand the colossal figures of apostles, patriarchs, prophets, raartyrs — all glorified by the same golden splendors of a June morn ing in Rome. Our carriage makes the circuit of St. Peter's and lands us in the interior court of St, Daraasus. We alight, and, as we prepare to ascend story after story of the raagnificent marble staircase leading to the Pope's apartments, we meet our friend Monsignor Macchi, the Maestro di Camera, or high chamberlain to His Holiness. Spare and tall, he greets us, as he does everybody, with the pleasantest words, and we ascend. The soldiers of the Swiss Guard, with their picturesque costume and mediaeval halberds, draw up to salute the high court dignitary. You will notice how grand, how solid, how massive even, everything is in these stairs and corridors. Up we go again, another long flight of Leo xiii. on his Throne, in his Private Audience Room. 564 ASSISTING AT THE POPE'S MASS. 565 the sarae statel}- dimensions. All is vast in this palace of the Vatican, where such large hospitality has so often been dispensed by the Popes ; all is raagnificent in its elegant simplicity. Was this not built to last for ever, as long as the peaceful principality of the Papacy itself ? There are beautiful frescoes here and there, which amateurs take leis ure to examine. But we are hurr}-ing to the Pope's early Mass in his quiet private chapel, and so may not tarry to gaze about us. We enter the Guard-Room — spacious, lofty, gorgeously frescoed. The officers and guard at once rise to receive Monsignor Macchi, and we are in the ante-room, quite close to the Throne-Roora, the door of which is open. The attendants, in rich costuraes, take our hats and the tickets of invitation, and we pass into the coraparatively small chamber which opens into the little private oratory. It is a great feast, and a number of distinguished persons have requested the honor of being present at the Holy Father's Mass and receiving Communion from his hand. Folding-doors open out in front of the little altar, on which everything is ready for the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice. The priestly vestments are laid on the altar it self, and the Missal stands open at the Epistle side. We are ushered to seats in the middle of the room, where we can best see the Pope during the celebration. All present are absorbed in their devotions ; no one seems to notice those who enter. But where is the Pope? He is still at his private devotions. This is for him a season of unusual fatigue, if one can so speak of a man who never knows, frora year's end to year's end, any cessa tion from overwhelraing labors and wasting cares. After his long, weary days of never-ending occupai-'rn his encyclicals, discourses, or letters have to be written in the quiet hours of the night. And has he not been found by his faithful old valet in the raorning with his head on his work-table, where sheer fatigue had brought on unre- freshing sleep? 566 LIFE OF LEO XIII. Leo XIII. is an early riser. His valet awakes him at a stated and early hour. The aged priest has not changed the simple habits of a lifetime because he is Pope. He is soon dressed in his cassock of pure white, and spends a few moments in adoration at the altar of his private chapel. Then there is a half-hour spent in raeditation or mental prayer on sorae of the great Gospel truths or mysteries. This over, one of his chaplains recites with him Prime, Tierce, and Sext — the three first morning " Hours" of the canonical office — and the Holy Father is ready for Mass. Around his private apartments, meanwhile, all is silence. The wearied spirit of him who is Vicar of Christ soars aloft to the throne of grace, to meditate there in the divine light on his own needs and the needs of his wide-spread flock. Prayer is to him a bath of life, frora which he coraes forth refreshed and strengthened for the day's labor before him. But prayer is also a preparation for the great priestly rite which is and ever has been Leo XIII.'s supreme comfort — the Mass. We were also thinking of The Presence on yonder lighted altar, when there was a slight commotion in the chapel. All of a sudden every one had knelt as if raoved by some common electric impulse. A white figure stands before the altar, with his face turned to us and the right hand holding a silver aspersory sprinkling holy water on the as sembled worshippers. It is but an instant that he remains fronting us. The face is of alabaster whiteness, and trans parent alraost, and the eyes are all-radiant with the fire of piety and fatherly kindness. The words of blessing were scarcely audible. It was as if sorae of Fra Angelico's glori fied saints had walked out of the canvas or corae down from the frescoes on the wall and shone upon us a raoraent, lifted his hand in blessing, raurraured low words of love and greeting, and then turned away. Leo XIII. then genuflected before the altar and rerired a little to our left, but out of sight, to read with his chap lain the psalms and prayers before Mass. There is in the Pope's pronunciation of the Latin soraething uncoramonly POPE LEO XIII. CELEBRA TING TIIE DIVINE OFFICE. 567 sweet and distinct. His utterance is slow and measured. Every word is given out as if the speaker were weighing its deepest sense and enjoying it. No man I ever saw at the akar so impressed me with the idea of one who is face to face with God and uttering ever}- word with infinite reve rence and feeling. The first Psalm he read is the eighty- third : " How lovel}- are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts ! M}- soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord. " Ever}- now- and then some verse in the Psalms moved him more powerfully, and his deep, grave voice sounded more clearly : " Wilt Thou be angry with us for ever? or wilt Thou extend Thy wrath from generation to generation ? " Or again : " Surely His salvation is near to them that fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land." Psalm after Psalm is thus recited. Is there not a quiver in the aged voice? " Ha\-e mercy on rae, O Lord; for I have cried to Thee all the day. . . . For Thou, O Lord, art sweet and mild ; and plenteous in mercy to those that call upon Thee." When he came to recite alone the beautiful series of prayers after the preparatory Psalms the silence in the chapel was painful. It was as if every heart there held its own pulsations to throb in that of the great High- Priest of the Church pleading before the raercy-seat. " Bend down to our prayers, O God of infinite mildness, the ears of Thy fatherly love, and enlighten our hearts with the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we may deserve worthily to minister at Thy mysteries and to love Thee with charity everlasting. . . . Oh ! w-e beseech Thee, O Lord, visit and purify our consciences, that our Lord Jesus Christ on com ing to us may find there a dwelling prepared for Him." And now the slender white forra is again before the altar ; he kneels a raoment, rises, and stands ready to be vested. Everything is done so quietly, so reverently, that you look on as if entranced. His chaplains assist hira, evidently feeble and seemingly fragile as he is, with a re spect all mingled with tenderness. At last he is vested and begins the Mass. As Leo 568 LIFE OF LEO XIII. XIII. stands before us in his full priestly vestments, it is painfully apparent how aged is that frame on which rests the awful burden of such responsibility, care, and toil. The shoulders and head are slightly bent, as if in reve rence to the tabernacle. Beneath the white skull-cap, or berretta, is a circle of the snow-white hair. Every tone of the priestly voice is now fuller, more measured, and in stinct with deeper feeling. " I will go unto the altar of God, to God who giveth joy to my youth. . . . Judge rae, O God ! and distinguish ray cause frora the nation that is not holy ; frora the unjust and deceitful raan deliver me. . . . Send forth Thy light and Thy truth ; they have conducted me and brought rae to Thy holy mount and into Thy tabernacles. ... I will praise Thee on the harp, O God, my God ! Why art thou sad, O ray soul ! and why dost thou disquiet me?" Then came the Confession, and, as the aged form bent lowly before the Presence there, every word seemed to shake it with emotion. He is, in truth, standing before the heavenly court on high, and suing for forgiveness to that Awful Majesty, surrounded by the angelic and the saintly multitudes. " I have sinned grievously, through my fault, through my fault, through my exceeding great fault." It is the feast of the Ascension of our Lord into heaven. The Mass is one of triumphant joyousness. The priest at the altar is raade to stand with the apostles and disciples on Mount Olivet watching the forra of the risen Saviour ascending slowly beyond our sphere : " Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven ? " But the eyes of faith follow Hira beyond the veil and to where He sits enthroned at the right hand of the Father. Leo XIII. has but a step to raake to pass behind the veil. His heart has long been there. He recites the angelic hymn, the " Glory be to God on high ! " as if he had al ready joined the exultant throng of blessed spirits. " We praise Thee! We bless Thee! We adore Thee! We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory, O Lord God, Heavenly King, God the Father Almighty." LEO XIII. ADMINISTERING HOLY COMMUNION. 569 One who has written of Leo XIII. the raost unkind and -undutiful things ever put in print about hira has also re corded that it is irapossible to be present while he cele brates Mass without feeling that this man is nearer to God than any one else, and speaks to Hira in a tone of deeper reverence, love, and adoration. We, who have spent within a few }-ears of half a cen tury in priestl}- ministrations, are bound to say that nothing ever so powerfully moved our soul as to see Leo XIII. at Christ's altar, his whole soul lifted up as if the Beatific Vision held it and made it plead there and supplicate with great heart-cries for the Church whose dangers, trials, and needs are his especial care. The holy rite occasionally seems to be too much for him. His frame is so shaken that you fancy he will fall if not supported by his chaplains. But the strong will sus tains him, and during the Canon and after the Consecra tion there is a continual upward raoveraent of head and shoulders, as if caused by a weight too heavy to carry. One could have wished that a person apparently so feeble and so overworked as the Holy Father should not have to give Coraraunion to the large numbers of strangers and pilgrims who are occasionally admitted as a great favor to hear the Pope's Mass. But that is the supreme consola tion of Catholics, to receive Christ's divinest gift frora his hand who is Vicar to the Giver. All approach in turn without the slightest confusion or embarrassraent. It is a very touching sight. Leo XIII. pronounces the sacraraental words with extraordinary era phasis and sweetness as each one kneels before hira. He presents his hand, which holds the sacred Host, to be kissed by the coramunicant before placing the Bread of Life on the tongue. Is it not right? //> represents the God " who openeth His hand and filleth every living soul with bless ing " ; we kiss in his the Hand which bestows on us in Communion the pledge of the life eternal. At length the Mass is over, and the Pope and all pre sent have heard a second Mass of thanksgiving. When the 5 70 LIFE OF LEO XIII. priest has withdrawn from the altar commences a scene such as can only be beheld in Rome, in the horae of the Com mon Parent of Christendom, and at the foot of the very altar where the High-Priest of our faith has just broken to his children the Bread of life eternal. They bring an arra-chair to the Epistle side, and the Holy Father is seated, and all present corae once more in succession to kneel at his feet, whose very face and air and all about him remind you of Christ the Lord receiving lit tle children and their parents. Family groups are intro duced together by good Monsignor Macchi, who whispers to the Holy Father who they are and whence they come. It is a sight never to be forgotten, so full of that hght of charity which is the light of Heaven. How radiant these sweet, spiritualized features are with fatherly interest and kindness ! Here are parents who have brought from afar, from the ends of the earth, their little girl to receive her First Communion from the hand which is now laid in blessing on the child's head. Can she ever forget these wonderful eyes bent on her, and the great fatherly soul looking out from behind that transparent face, and the sweet words of blessing he utters ? No wonder children are so drawn to Leo XIII. And why, oh! why can he not go out into the streets of Rorae ? Why cannot that great father go and collect these little ones around him, and by his words, his blessing, his very air, and the virtue which goes forth from him, draw these innocents and bind them for ever to Christ ? Parents and children have gone away with their eyes full of tears of joy and their hearts full of reverence. Then other groups corae in turn — the afflicted, the tried; gene ral officers, Frenchraen among them, bronzed in distant climes and by long service, but soldiers of Christ as well. How Leo XIII. knows to say brave words to these noble professors of the faith ! And how reverently they kiss that fatherly hand extended to thera or the erabroidered slip per on his feet who has borne the words of the Gospel of Peace over the raountains and the seas to the remotest DAIL Y LIFE OF POPE LEO XIII. 571 tribes ! But Leo XIII. seldora gives you an opportunity ¦ to bend down and kiss his feet at these raorning receptions in the holy place. And then there are journalists and other soldiers of the truth for whora Leo XIII. has an especial regard. These are the raen on whom he relies in the great battle with popular error and prejudice. Be sure that his first and last recomraendation to such will be charity — cha rity in all things. For why should truth triumph, if not to make charity reign among men ? Here is our turn. Do not be afraid or ashamed to kneel to that venerable man, even though you be not a Catholic. His blessing, the blessing of one who has battled so long for Christ and who has held His banner aloft in the eyes of the nations, will bring you nothing but good. And as you look into those love-lit eyes and watch the ineffably sweet smile around that raouth, do you not think that somewhat of a warmer love, a deeper interest goes out to you, pre cisely because you are not one of his flock, although he deems you one of his children ? And now we are invited to be a little longer with the Holy Father. Is he not too fatigued ? does he not wish to be left alone awhile ? No. He is going to take his morn ing refection before beginning his terrible round of official labors. Quite near the little chapel is the Pope's breakfast- room. It is simple enough in all conscience. And what is this breakfast ? A cup of black coffee with a small roll of bread. Nothing more. And now the breakfast is ended and the Pope withdraws to his private study, where his enorraous correspondence and his secretaries are waiting for hira. Every day in the week and every hour in each day has its own appointed labor. The congregations or standing committees of cardinals, araong whom are divided all the matters connected with the vast adrainistration of a Church numtDering 200,000,000, report regularly to the Holy Father. Some of thera have the Pope for president and hold their sittings in his presence. The Propaganda has now two dis tinct sections, one of which has the same superintendence 5 72 LIFE OF LEO XIII. over the raissions and spiritual interests of the Eastern na tions that the Propaganda proper has of all other raission ary countries. Its multiplicity of affairs would be alone sufficient to occupy a host of active and devoted men. Here is another new office which the circumstances of the times in Italy have compelled the Holy Father to cre ate. At its head is Monsignor Gabriel Boccali, one of the raen whora Leo XIII. reared and trained in Perugia to be bright lights in God's Church. He is Uditor di Sua San- tith — auditor or judge in the Pope's own palace. The Holy Father has unbounded confidence in hira, for he knows him well. Young, pious, devoted to his duty, learned beyond his years, he is sure to rise to the highest erainence. But he will ever be the true priest and servant of the Church. The special relations of the bishops of Italy to the Holy See in presence of the Italian governraent, and the need they have of the Holy Father's support, together with the necessity of choosing the very best and safest men for Italian bishoprics, have iraposed on him a heavy load of anxiety. It is on such raen as Monsignor Boccali that he puts a part of the labor which this peculiar position im poses. Innuraerable congregations and coraraissions besides have their special work to do, and to report regularly. And Leo XIII. is not one with whora it is safe to be un- punctual, or irregular, or inexact, or slovenly in any way. Great as is his raind, and high as it soars in his doctrinal expositions or his raasterly surveys of social conditions, po litical exigencies, or the relative positions and tendencies of philosophical systeras, his is also an erainently practical raind, to which the minutest details are grateful. Nay, soraetiraes people are surprised to find that the Holy Fa ther, whose solicitude extends to' every diocese and mission on the surface of the globe, will be familiar with the small est particulars of administration and insist on the minutest exactness frora all who report to hira. His memory and his all-grasping intellect seem to be equal to the most astound ing labor. MULTIPUCITY OF THE HOL Y FA TILER'S LABORS. 5 J T, On all these weighty, intricate, perplexing matters which every congregation, every commission treats, his judgraent has always to be given. And it is always a deliberate and enlightened judgment. The Cardinal Vicar, Parocchi, for instance, every Satur day evening has his special audience to report on the af fairs of the diocese of Rome for the week last past. Every detail of administration is gone into. Primary, Secondary Schools, the Seminario Roraano with its Institute of High Literature, the various confraternities, the parochial work in all the churches, and raany other weighty matters are to the Holy Father, as Bishop of Rome, things of absorbing interest. Even with one so zealous, so entirely devoted, so experienced, and so gifted as Cardinal Parocchi, Leo XIII.'s conscience will not be at rest till he has known and judged for himself on the ensemble and the details. We could mention the Congregation of Studies, the Commission of Historical Studies, and other bodies which co-operate with the Holy Father in keeping high and rais ing ever higher the level of science in the great schools of Rome and Italy ; all these have to report regularly. And it can easily be imagined if one of Leo XIII.'s intellectual tastes and culture will dismiss the cardinals who report to him with a few brief words or be satisfied with a perfunc tory examination. Perfunctory Leo XIII. is in nothing. He is thorough, and thoroughly in earnest, in all that pertains to the work of his subordinates or his own. And then there is the Cardinal Secretary of State and the terribly difficult and incredibly dehcate work of dealing with the foreign governments. Look over the entire politi cal and diplomatic field, and think of the hard and long battles the Holy See has to fight, not only with non-Catholic courts but with those that we call Catholic. All this is a matter of daily, soraetiraes of hourly, concern and labor for the Holy Father. He has to receive arabassadors, archbishops, bishops, pilgriras, deputations, addresses frora the nuraerous Catholic 5 74 LIFE OF LEO XIII. unions and committees, and from Catholic congresses. All this is a part of the working of the living organism of Cath olicity. But it is as uninterrupted as the circulation of the blood in the frame. Go by permission, about ten or eleven o'clock in the raorning on the days when the Holy Father receives, and sit in the Throne-Room for the two hours before noon dur ing which audience after audience is given. You look at Monsignor Macchi's spare and spent figure, and you wonder when this good prelate finds rest. He seeras to be ever on foot. But his graceful courtesy knows no change. You look at the Pontiff's own face and form, and wonder how the lamp of hfe is fed or does not go out in such a frail vessel. But only think of the work that one raan has to go through ! At noon the Pope retires for a walk in the gardens of the Vatican during the cool season. In suramer this out door recreation is perforce put off till evening. But there are the evening audiences, too, which are the most numer ous, the longest, and the raost wearing. Then it is that bishops are received to report on the state of their dioceses, and that priests who corae with them are granted the favor of an audience. There are certain occasions when strangers are so nu merous that private audiences are out of the question. Then a day is fixed when they are adraitted by a ticket from Monsignor Macchi to one of the great halls in the Vatican, and the Holy Father passes through their ranks, blessing them and saying some kind words in French and Italian. But in tiraes of pilgriraage and jubilee, as will be 1887, the year of the Pope's Golden Jubilee, the whole Catholic world sends its bands of pilgrims from every land to pay their homage of love to the Vicar of Christ, and the stream of visitors to the Vatican seems never to end. But what a consolation to such a fatherly heart as that of Pius IX. or Leo XIIL, so tried by the persecutions of PRIVA TE LIFE OF POPE LEO. 575 the Church and the forced captivit}- they endure, to see this unending procession of nations and peoples coming and going through the halls of the Vatican, around the seat of the Coraraon Father and the Torab of the holy Apos tles! Where has there ever been seen anything like what Rome saw in 1877, and w-hat it will again see in 1887 when the whole Christian world will pour forth at the feet of Leo XIII. the expression of its reverence, love, and fealty ? But think, too, of the addition to the ordinary labors which have to be gone through, no raatter what throngs raay flock to the Vatican or corae and go through the glorious temple alongside. When, then, does Leo XIII. find tirae for his ordinary meals ? They are solitarj' and frugal raeals. Look at his face and see if there are there any signs of indulgence of any kind. The siraplest food, a little wine and water— the beverage of all Italians — a little fruit, such is Leo XIII.'s ordinary raorning fare. At night the repast is also frugal. The Breviary Office is recited with one of his chaplains. The utter weariness begotten by the terrible round of of ficial duties is lightened or dispelled by the pleasure the Pope finds in prayer, in the recitation of the inspired Psalms of " the Sweet Singer of Israel," in the lessons of Holy Scripture and the brief record of the life of the saint ¦of the day. After examination of conscience and night prayers the aged Pope is supposed to retire and to rest. His roora is but siraply, scantily furnished ; and his rest, when not bro ken in upon, is barely sufficient to restore the forces of ex hausted nature. And he is an early riser. His habits, as we have said elsewhere, are those of an ascetic. But does he never break in upon his rest ? Too frequently, they say. His raagnificent encyclicals ; his consistorial allocutions ; his addresses to pilgrims, deputations, and societies ; his most important bulls or constitutions, like those on the restoration of the Scotch hierarchy, on the settlement of the difficulties in England between the bishops and the 576 LIFE OF LEO XIII. regulars, are written or corrected or finished in the quiet of the night, when all in the Vatican enjoy much-needed repose. But the white-robed figure, so much like a supernatural apparition, watches, works, prays alone in the stillness. He bears the burden of a whole world. His soul is sad with the sorrows, trials, sufferings of the nations. The lamp in the Pope's room in the Vatican, shining at night when all around is darkness, gives forth the Lumen in Coelo, that supernal light which even now illuminates both hemispheres. No such light, since St. Peter's teach ing and virtues shone in that very spot, confounding and ap palling the licentious and cruel Nero, ever shed its splen dors on the world from the Seven Hills of Rome. Appendixes. APPENDIXKS. APPENDIX A. The Roman universities, like those of Bologna, Paris, Oxford, etc., were a union, chartered by both the ecclesiastical and the civil authorities, and teaching all the branches or sciences needful to the great liberal pro fessions of theologv, law, and medicine. They did more than this, how ever ; for they deserved their appellation of " university" by teaching all that was worth learning in human and divine knowledge — universitas scien- tiarum et artium. This will be fully seen and understood from a brief sketch of the University of Sapienza as it existed under the fatherly and generous gov ernment of the Popes. It was founded by Boniface VIII. in 1303, a Pope who, whatever be his supposed or real demerits, certainly had the merit of being both a scholar and a most enlightened promoter of the highest scho larship. Besides the Sapienza, which still remains as a national monu ment to his liberal genius, the traveller will be shown, in the museum of the old University of Bologna, a statue in hammered bronze plates erect ed to him by the Bolognese professors and people in grateful testimony of his protection of their rights. The Roman university lived on through the disastrous years of the Papal exile at Avignon, as well as through the vicissitudes of the great schism. It was then enlarged by Eugenius IV. (Colonna), Nicholas V., and by the clever Spaniard, Alexander VI. The great Franciscan monk, Sixtus v., bestowed on it much care and liberality, and from his time, as is related in the text, it began to be called the Sapienza. His immediate successors continued this munificent protection. Leo X. reformed its constitution and organization, gave it new statutes, appointed handsome salaries for the professors, erected the university chapel, and endowed two chaplaincies for its service. Gregory XIIL, the Bolognese Ugo Buon- compagni, encouraged still further higher studies by granting to all stu dents taking out the degree of doctor a life annuity of twenty-five crowns. Sixtus V. did far more, enlarging, repairing, beautifying the university buildings, and creating a congregation or standing committee of cardinals to superintend its teaching as well as all studies in the Roman schools. Alexander VII. completed it, as the inscription in front of the church testifies. To name the Pontiffs who added to its efficiency, enlarged the sphere 579 580 APPENDIXES. of science within it, or enriched by princely contributions some one or several of the university departments would be tedious. One would really seem to be sketching, in so doing, the progress of every one almost of those sciences of which the nineteenth century is as proud as if they had been unknown to preceding ages. Innocent XL, while persecuted and oppressed b}- Louis XIV, found ed the Theatre of Anatomy at the instigation of the celebrated anatomist Lancisius. Clement XI. made splendid additions to the library. Bene dict XIV. decreed that the professorial chairs should only be obtained by a public concursus. He also made ample provisions for the chairs of ma thematics, physics, and chemistry, and provided theatres for experimental physics and anatom3', with suitable apparatus. Later Pontiffs added other chairs according as the progress of science or the needs of the age de manded. The French under Bonaparte closed all these schools, as they had done to the schools of Milan, Bologna, P.ivia, and other Italian cities. Restored by Pius VII. and then suppressed, the Sapienza was once more reopened on his restoration in 1814. But the greatest benefactor of this university was Leo XIL, who, as above stated, renovated this establishment and all the other educational establishments in Rome and the Papal States. Five colleges composed the Sapienza or Roinan University — those of theology, philosophy, law, medicine, and philology. " The academical year, " says Dr. Donovan, " commences on Novem ber 5 and ends on June 27, during whicli interval gratuitous lectures are given in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Chaldaic ; in botany, chemistry, natural history, anatom}-, physiology, pathology, pharmacy, and surgery ; in algebra, geometry, physics, mechanics, hydraulics, optics, astronomy, mineralogj', and archaeology ; in sacred eloquence, dogmatic theology, and Sacred Scripture ; in the law of nature, the law of nations, canon, civil, and criminal law. The schools of the Academ)' of St. Luke are also attached to the university, forming part of the edifice, and in them the pupils are gratuitously taught painting, sculpture, architecture, geome try, perspective, optics, anatomy, history, mythology, etc., by eleven pro fessors, forming a distinct establishment, under the direction of a presi dent. Pius VII. instituted a school of engineering, which was remodelled by Leo XII. The number of students . . . generally exceeds one thou sand." * Besides the University of the Sapienza there was the Roman College, or Gregorian Universit}', still more numerously attended, the various na tional colleges sending their pupils to its schools. Then there was the Propaganda, a university in itself and the great nursery for heathen and non-Catholic countries. All these great schools were endowed with more than princely magni ficence by the successors of the Fisherman, whose object was to make all * " Rome, Ancient and Modern," by Rev. J. Donovan, D.D., vol. iii. c. 11. APPENDIXES. 581 sciences the handmaids of religion, the zealous servants of the God of all knowledge. Museums, libraries, collection.s of all the rarest monununls of ancient and modern art, were at the disposition of students and pro fessors — all these rare treasures and scieulilic apparatus receiving con- tinu.-il additions from crcli leiyiiing Pontiff und the cardinals and other prelates, who emulated the enlightened zeal of the popes. Thus was Rome made llie intellectual as well as the religious head of the civilized world, the limited revenues of the Popes permitting tlieni to foster all the arts of peace, while their people, without a great standing army or navy, knew nothing of the load of ta.xation which at present ren ders their lot ivell-nigh intolerable. The University of Sapienza, like all the schools of Rome, continued to be fostered and developed by liregory XVI. and Pius IX. till the Pied montese occupation of Rome superseded the authority of the Holy Father, to the great detriment of education as well as of literary and scientific progress. APPENDIX B. Among those who contended for this premium was the Rev. Tobias Kirby, D. D., a young Irish priest, who had come to Rome in 829 and has lived there ever since. Of course he lost the prize, although his disserta tion on the same subject, printed at the request of Leo XIIL, and now before us, is a most creditable performance. " I was not personalh- acquainted with Monsignor Pecci at the time," said to us the other day this venerable prelate, now Archbishop of Ephe sus, "and did not make his acquaintance till long afterwards while he was Cardinal Bishop of Perugia. Meeting him one day in the Vatican, I made bold to introduce myself — not a very difficult thing, for nothing could exceed the affability and unaffected goodness of His Eminence. After exchanging the first sentences required b)' courtesy, I asked him if he were the same young distinguished jurist who, in 1S35, bore off the prize on ' Appeals to the Supreme Pontiff in person.' He replied, with a smile, that he was ; and I told him I had come after a long lapse of years to do hom age 10 him as to my victor in that contest. It was a very pleasant intro duction ; for the eminent prelate, revered throughout all Ital3for his learn ing, his eloquence, and his many virtues, was not loath to recall the academical struggles of long ago, when young men contended apparently for a paltry sum of money. After the death of Pius IX. and Ihe elevation to the papal chair of Cardinal Pecci," Dr. Kirby went on, " I happened lo be in t.ie Vatican to pay my homage on a certain occasion. ' Holy Fa ther,' I said, 'I have found the dissertation you were inquiring about, among my papers." 'Have you, indeed?' he replied. 'Well, I should much like to see it, and you must publish it' Thus it was my little pamphlet s.iw the light. But," continued Dr. Kirby, "you can see in this little trait the charming humility and simplicity of the Pope's charac ter. To those whom he is acquainted with personally, or who are in any 582 APPENDIXES. way admitted to his intimacy, he is on the throne what he was fifty years ago — a man utterly devoid of self-consciousness and self-seeking." Dr. Kirby dedicates the printed dissertation to the Pope in a graceful Latin address not unworthy of Leo XIII.'s classic taste. "Deign, Holy Father," he says, " to accept these unscholarly pages as a part of the spoils of those vanquished by you at the beginning of your glorious career. Ac cept them also as some slight earnest of the ancestral faith and devotion toward your Holiness — that is, the Chair of Peter — which I imbibed with my mother's milk. ' For we Irish,' to use the words of my fellow-coun tryman, St. Columbanus, ' are firmly attached to the Chair of St. Peter. Rome, in truth, is great and her fame is wide-spread. But in our country she is only great and illustrious through that Chair. Because of the two Apostles of Christ you of Rome are almost heavenly beings, and Rome is by them the head of all the churches on earth.' " So, kneeling at the feet of your Holiness, I ask a blessing for my self, for this college, and my native Ireland ; I also pray God to guide your Holiness by His light in the government of the Church, so that even as you were always the victor in the beginning of your sacred warfare for the truth, so you may continue to vanquish all the enemies of the Church to the end." APPENDIX C. The cardinals are the immediate counsellors and coadjutors of the Pope, who divide with him in Rome the enormous labor of governing up wards of two hundred million Catholics spread all over the globe, and of transacting in the centre of Catholicity the vast business pertaining to this administration. This complex business is divided into various departments and sub- departments, at the head of which is a " Congregation,'' or standing com mittee, of cardinals, assisted by a staff of the most eminent jurists, canon ists, theologians, and specialists, who, as consultors and referendaries, tho roughly sift each matter submitted to the congregation before it is pro nounced upon by the cardinals in session, and then reported to the Sove reign Pontiff for his sanction. The decision thus sanctioned is then signed by the cardinal president of the congregation and by the secretary, and is final, generally speaking. These congregations, as one may imagine, are very numerous, the same cardinal often doing service in several — a service so laborious that no one vvho has not been in Rome and followed attentively the working of this great and complicated administrative machinery can have any notion whatever of the continual and enormous fatigue thus imposed on the resident members of the Sacred College. Here are the names of the most important of these congregations : I. Inquisition~Nol that established in Spain as an instrument of state policy, and often maintained in its cruel and unsparing measures in spile of the remonstrances of the Holy See, but the Roman Inquisition, APPENDIXES. 58: whose object is to watch over the purity of the Christian doctrine in every part of Christ's flock Its judgments are merely doctrinal. 2. The Index — For the condemnation of books contrary to faith and morals. 3. The Propagation of the Faith, or Propaganda — It does the work of Christ's Vicar by taking all possible means to spre.id the failh in heathen lands and to restore it in lands distracted by heresv. It has a special stii-congregation for the superintendence of all churches belonging to the Oriental Rites, and a special commission of three cardinals for revising and correcting of Oriental ecclesiastical books. 4. Examination of Bishops. 5. Extraorditiary Ecclesiastical Affairs. 6. Bishops and Regulars — Judges appeals from the decisions of bishops, hears causes between bishops and members of religious orders, exam ines and approves the rules of all monastic orders. 7. On the State of Regulars or Religious Orders. 8. The Sacred Penitentiary. 9. The Congregation of the Counci — Interprets the doctrine and discipli nary decrees of General Councils. 10. Congregation of Studies — For the studies within Rome and all Italy. To this the present Pope has joined a commission on historical studies. II. Sacred Rites. APPENDIX D. THE RIGHT OF VETO IN PAPAL ELECTIONS. The three acknowledged Catholic Powers, France, Spain, and Austria (as well as Portugal, according to some authors), had, bj- moral compul sion or in recognition of some great service rendered to religion, obtained the right of veto or "exclusion" in a conclave. If a certain candidate happened to be obnoxious to the sovereign of any of these kingdoms, he had a right to protest through his ambassador against the choice of such candidate, thereby "excluding" him from all chance of being elected. This right or privilege could only be exercised once during the conclave by any Power, and that before a two-thirds vote had been cast for any can didate. Once such vote had been given the election was over, and no veto or " exclusion " availed to invalidate it. There is no instance on record of such right of "exclusion" having been exercised by Portugal. The last instance of " exclusion " was that exercised by Spain in the conclave which, in January, 1831, elected Gregory XVI. The person thus excluded was Cardinal Giustiniani, who on the morning of January 7 re ceived twenty-one votes, within four of the required two-thirds. There upon the Spanish Cardinal Marco communicated to the dean of the Sacred College and to Cardinal Odescalchi, nephewto Giustiniani, a note of Pedro 5«4 APPENDIXES. Gomez Labrador, ambassador of the King of Spain to the Holy See, dated December 24, 1830, and expressly "excluding" Cardinal Giustiniani. The note was read to the Sacred College immediately after the ballot which gave Cardinal Giustiniani twenty-one votes. This venerable man at once advanced with a joyous air and step into the middle of the chapel, and, after expressing his surprise at such " exclusion " coming from the King of Spain, who had bestowed on him during his nunciature at Madrid signal marks of esteem and favor, he continued . " Of all the benefits bestowed on me by his Majesty [Ferdinand VIL], that which I look upon as the chief and the most grateful to me — at least in its consequences — is that he has this day excluded me from the lofty dignity of the Pontificate. Conscious as I am of my own infirmity, I could never have anticipated the danger of being burdened with so heavy a re sponsibility. Still, perceiving during these last days, to my surprise, that I was thought of in this respect, I was filled with heartfelt grief. To day, as this load of anxiety is removed from me, my peace of mind is re stored. . . '¦ It was no secret that Cardinal Giustiniani was utterly opposed to his o%vn elevation to the Papacy. In this he resembled Cardinal Pecci. Upon this right of veto in connection with the conclave of Februar)', 1878, we may quote the following words : " This privilege, which so often proved to be injurious to the interests of the Church, would be still more in our times, when governments have become entirel)' separated from the Church. The grounds on which it was originally granted having thus ceased to exist the privilege itself thereby ceased to exist. A journal said something about this veto. But, whatever may have been the dispositions of those who could have claimed the privilege, it is certain that no move wns made in that direction, and thnt the governments showed that they disclaimed it, or rather that they knew they had lost all right to it. Thus it is that, even in the midst of new persecutions, the Churcii succeeds in freeing herself from bonds and impediments which she had to bear with in other circumstances, but which were far from being desirable or ser viceable to her." APPENDIX E. "Venerable Brothers : The matter on which we have undertaken to address you is already well known to the public. As, however, it regards the common welfare of all nations and constitutes a revival of a most honorable customary function of the Apostolic See, we have thought that the transaction deserved to be related to you by ourselves on this impor tant occasion. " In the month of September last we were requested, both by the Em peror of Gerraany and the King of Spain, lo take upon ourselves to arbi trate between them in the dispute arisen concerning the Carolinas Islands. We gladly accepted the office thus entrusted to us, in the hope of helping the cause of peace and humanity. We therefore examined and weighed APPENDIXES. 5^5 in the balance of an impartial and equilalile judgment the argumeiils of both parties, and then submitted certain piopohilions as a basis on wliicli both should agree, and which we hoped would prove acceptable to them. " Spain alleged many reasons in support of her right to that dislant portion of Micronesia. She was the first nation whose ships had reached those shores, and this fact was acknowledged bv the most distinguislu-d geographers. The verj- name of Carolinas attested the Spanish title. Be sides, the kings of Spain had often sent thither apostolic men as mission aries, and of this the annals of the Roman Pontificate afford confirmaiuiy proof; for there exists a letter of our predecessor, Clement XL, to Phili|i v., written in 1706, and praising the king for having equip|)cd and fur nished a vessel to transport missionaries to these islands. He moreover exhorts his Majesty to continue to propagate the Christian name and help procure the salvation of multitudes of men. " The same Pontiff also wrote to Louis XIV. beseeching him to op pose no obsiacles to the happy issue of an enterprise so happily begun by his royal grandson. Again, Philip V. appointed in aid of these missions (to the Carolinas) a sum of two thousand crowns. Furthermore, none but the Spanish nation ever did anything to help to bring the light of the Gos pel to the islanders. Finally, none but these missionaries have ever given any information to the world on the manner of living and customs of the natives of the Carolinas. " From this series of facts, viewed especially in the light of the then existing international law, one clearly perceives that the right of Spain to the Carolinas Islands stands forth well establisied. For if any right of domination can be justly founded on the fact of enlightening barbarous peoples, it must be granted that those who had endeavored to convert them from pagan superstition to the Gospel truth contributed most to their civilization, since to our holy religion belong all the forces capable of humanizing men. On this principle was founded the right of possession in more than one instance, particularly in the case of islands in the ocean, ir.any of which bear names given them by religion. "Seeing, therefore, that a long and well-founded public opinion con ceded to Spain the possession of the Carolinas Islands, it cannot be won dered at if, when this dispute arose, the Spanish people were so excited that there was great danger for the internal peace of the kingdom and for its friendly relations with other powers. " To these arguments Germany opposed others, also based on interna tional law : that to hold a landed possession residence is necessary ; that, taking into account the facts of modern history, international law sanc tions the rightful ownership of unoccupied land by holding it and using it ; that so long as such lands are not so held by occupation and use they are to be accounted as belonging to no owner. Wherefore, considering the fact that the Carolinas had not during a century and a half been occupied by Spain, the islands should have been adjudged the property of the first person taking possession of them. In support of this it was alleged that some such dispute as the present having arisen in 1875, both Germany 586 APPENDIXES. and Great Britain affirmed' that they would never acknowledge the right of Spain to the ownership of the Carolinas. " Seeing how divided between contrar)' opinions men's minds were, we endeavored to prevent further dissension; :ind, taking into account the respective rights and interests of the two conti-nding nations, we con fidently laid before them a plan for bringing about a peaceful settlement. We were guided only by our sense of equilj'. and, as you are aware, both disputants willingly agreed to our plan. "So then a thing happened of which the present direction of pub lic opinion did not afford much hope. Providence willed that two great and illustrious nations should do homage to the highest authority in the Church by asking it to fulfil an oflSce so much in harmony with its nature, to preserve by its action the threatened peace and harmony between them. This is the fruit of that salutary and beneficent influence which God has attached to the power of the Sovereign Pontiffs. Superior to the envious jealousy of its enemies, and more mighty than the prevailing iniquity of the age, it is subject neither to destruction nor to change. " From all this, too, it becomes manifest how grievous an evil are the wars waged against the Apostolic See and the lessening of its rightful liberty. For thereby it is not merely justice and religion that are made the sufferers, but the public good itself, since, in the present perilous and changeful condition of public affairs, the Roman Pontificate would confer far greater benefits on the world if, with perfect freedom and unimpaired rights, it could bestow all its energies in promoting, without impediment, the salvniion of the human race. " The discovery made by Spain, in the sixteenth century, of the Caro Unas and Palaos Islands, and a series of acts done by the Spanish govern ment in these same islands at different times and for the benefit of the native populations thereof, have, in the opinion of the Spanish government and people, created a title to sovereignty over the same, based on the maxims of international law which were in vogue and followed in that age when such conflicts arose. Indeed, when we take into consideration this series of acts, the truth of which is confirmed by various documents in the archives of the Propaganda, it is impossible to deny the beneficent labors of Spain in favor of these islanders. And it is further to be re marked that no other government at any time extended to these islands a like beneficent action. This explains the unbroken tradition, which cannot be overlooked, and the strong feeling of conviction among the Spanish people respecting ihis sovereignty — a tradition and a conviction which, two months ago, manifested themselves in such outbu-'sts of warmth and animosity that they seriously threatened to compromise momentarily the interior tranquillity of the kingdom and the relations existing between the two friendly governments. " On her side, Germany, as well as England, declared expressly in 1875 to the Spanish government that they did not acknowledge the sove reignty of Spain over these islands Far from such acknowledgment, the Imperial government is of opinion that nothing but the effective occupa- APPE.VDIXES. 587 tion of a territory can constitute sovereignty over it ; and such occupation of the Carolinas by Spain never has been effected. ' It is in conformity with this principle that Germany acted in the island of Yap, and on this point the Mediator is gratified in declaring that the Imperial government acted with perfect honesty, which is also acknowledged by the Spanish government. " Wherefore, and in order to prevent this divergence of opinions from becoming an obstacle to an honorable settlement between the two govern ments, the Mediator, after duly considering the whole question, proposes that in the new convention to be agreed upon both parties accept the for mulas of the Protocol concerning the Soulou (I0I6) Archipelago, signed at Madrid the 7ih of last March by the representatives of Great Britain, Germany, and Spain, and that the following points be adopted : "'First Point; The sovereignty of Spain over the Carolinas and Palaos Islands is afiSrmed. Second Point: The Spanish government, in order to render its said sovereignty effective, binds itself to establi'^ii, as soon as possible, in this archipelago a regular administration, with a force sufficient to preserve order and protect acquired rights. Third Point : Spain proffers to German)' full and entire freedom of commerce, naviga tion, and fishing in these islands, -as well as the right to establish there a naval station and a coaling depot. Fourth Point : To Germany is also se cured the liberty of making plantations in these islands, and there found ing agricultural establishments on the same footing as Spanish subjects.' " Rome, from the Vatican, October 22, 1885. " L. Card. Jacobini." INDEX. 589 INDEX. Abohonan, Mgr., elected Patriarch of Babylon, 378, confirmed by Sublime Porte, 393. Abyssinia, hindrances to Christianity in, 406. Academies, annual, instituted by Mgr. Pecci in Perugia, 149. Academy of St. Thomas, Rome, insti tuted, " Transactions " of , 151, 152, 491. " Acta Leonis XIIL" quoted, 326, 338, 341, 350, 373. 387. 403. 415, 419, 430, 431, 441, 475. 4S4. 493- Alexander TV., Pope, reminiscence of. 208. Alexander II. of Russia, severity of, to Catholics, 3S0; letter of, to Leo XIIL, 384 ; sons of, sent to Rome, 385. Alfonso XII of Spain in the Carolinas affair, 547 ; death of, tribute to, 549. Allocutions of Leo XIIL: the first, 323- 326, 410 ; on outrages at funeral of Pius IX., 436-439 ; on Carolinas af fair, 552-554. 584-587. America, Catholicism on continent of, 352 ; French missionaries in, 497- 500. Anarchism — see Socialism. Ancillon, Johann P., on Papacy in mid dle ages, 539. Angelis, Cardinal Philip de, sufferings of, 218, 285 ; death of, 284 ; affec tion of Pius IX. for, Camerlengo, 285, 286. Anne, St., affection of Mgr. Pecci for, 133 ; churches of, at Auray (France), Quebec (Canada), Youghal (Ireland), 134- Annunciation, church of O. L. of, in scription at by Joachim Pecci, 74. Apostolic See — see Holy See. Aquinas, St. Thomas, method of, 150, adopted by Mgr. Pecci, 151 ; Acade my of, instituted, 151, 49^ i ^''''^ Centenary of, 151 ; philosophy of, prescribed for Catholic schools, 485 ; praise of, by Leo XIII , 488, 49° 1 homage paid to, by councils. 490. Athanasius, St., College of, for Greeks founded, 389 ; improvements in, by Leo XIIL, 390; countries repre sented at, 3gl. Audo, Joseph, Patriarch of Chaldea, piety of, 392. Augustine, St., quoted, 338, 429, 487. Baccelli, Dr., determines to exclude re ligion from schools, 359. Bahtiarian, Mgr., creates schism in Ar menia, 394 ; seeks absolution, 395. Ballarini, Mgr., 155. Ballerini, Father, quoted, 71, 122. Baltimore, Third Plen. Council of, con vened, 441 ; opened, blessing from Pope, 449, response, 450 ; telegram of, 10 Card. McCloskey, 450 ; closed, 451; pastoral letter of fathers of, 451-456 ; work of, for education. Catholic University, 456, 457 ; sche ma of, approved by Leo XIIL, 457 ; letter to, from Archbishop of Co logne, 472 Barberini, Cardinal Antonio, scholar ships founded by, in Propaganda, 534- Belgian College, Rome, founded, 123, 124 ; predilection for, of Mgr. Pecci, 122. Belgium, why separated from Holland, 109 ; results of constitutional govern ment in, no ; secret societies in, no, III, 115, 119 ; school .system in, 112, 113 ; queen of, devoted to Christian education, 113, X14 ; Catholics of, deceived in accepting constitution, 119 ; feeling of people of, for Mgr. Pecci, 121, 125, 126; societies for workingmen in, 322. Benevento, Italy, description of, 8g ; results of French rule in, briganda e in, 90, 91 ; affection of people of, for Mgr. Pecci, 92-94 ; brigandage in, eradicated, 95, 98 ; industry and commerce revived in, 98 ; cession of, asked by King Ferdinand, 98, re fused by Pope, 99. Bible, mutilated translations of, ir\ cities o{ The Marches, gi8, 59» 592 INDEX. Bismarck, Prince, disposed to meet the Pope, 351 ; meaning given by, to Kulturkampf, 363 ; account by, of advances to Leo XIIL, 474-476 ; on results of Kulturkampf, 476 ; steps of, toward reconciliation with Holy See, 477 ; views of, as to Catholics, changed, 551. Boccali, Mgr. Gabriel, 155 ; Auditor of His Holiness, 572. Bonnechose, Cardinal de, account by, of Cardinal Pecci in conclave, 310. Borromeo, St. Charles, zeal of, for education, 141 ; established catechism classes, 141, 142. Boschi, Archpriest, 155. Bosnia and Herzegovina, hierarchy erected in, 388. Brigandage in Italy in 1838, go, 91, 95, 96 ; adventure of Mgr. Pecci with, 97. Brommel, Bishop von, of Liege, posi tion of, on education, 122. Brunelli, Prof. G. , reminiscence by, of Mgr. Pecci, 148, 155. Brussels, University of, its irreligious character, 115, 116 ; efforts of Catho lics for, defeated, 117. Calixtus II. fosters devotion to shrine of St. James of Compostella, 558, 559- Camaldolese of Monte Corona, hard ships of, 246, 248. Cantu, Cesare, opposes suppression of monasteries, 249. Caprara, Cardinal, as legate to Paris, 80. Carafa, Prof. A., in Collegio Romano, 68. Carbonari, power of, in 1820, 102 ; Central Lodge of, on temporal power of Pope, 206. Cardinals, College of, their labors, 269 ; Cardinal Pecci's duties as member of, 270 ; deaths in, in 1877, 283-285 ; confirm last protest of Pius IX., 298 ; prepare for conclave of 1878, 300, 301, Amat, Morichini, ("atterini invalids, 301, members present and absent, 302, unhampered in election, 302, 303, character of members, 303, distinctive colors at, 305 ; pay homage to Leo XIII , 312, 319 ; as counsellors to Pope, 325 ; council of, for filling Italian sees, 370 ; congregations of, 571, 582, list, 582, 583. Carnicchi, Canons, 155. Carolinas Islands, discovered and set tled by Spaniards, 543, 544 ; mission abandoned, title lost to Spain, 544 ; Yap occupied by Germany, 546, 547 ; dispute settled by Holy See, 548, 551-554, 584-587- Carpineto, description of, 37, 38, 40. Catholic Church, dark hours of, 33, 34; despoiled by Napoleon I., 49, 51 ; revival of, in Great Britain, 127 ; bishops of, in Italy, refuse compromise with government, 169, results, assistance from Pope, 170 ; bishops of, protest to King Victor Emmanuel, 170-175 ; attempted de struction of, by Julian the Apostate, 172 ; temporal dominion of, 199 ; independent of state, 219 ; right of, in matrimony, 230 ; courts of, and control of education in Umbria, abolished, 242, 243 ; alone has juris diction of Religious Orders, 245 ; treated as a foreign power, 253 ; re lations of, to state, 254 ; war against, not an open one, 288 ; hatred for. the cause of social evils, 330, 331 ; the promoter of civilization, 332- 334 ; able to restore modem society, 345 ; preservation of. in Italy, seem ingly hopeless, 362 ; persecution of, in Russia, 380-385 ; troubles of. in Turkey, 392-397 ; progress of, in Persia, 398-402, in China, 402-404, in Japan, 405, in Abyssinia, 406 ; revival of, in England, 408, 409, in Scotland, 409-415 ; in United States, 421, 422 ; clergy of, in Ireland, not united, 425 results of union of, 427 ; birth of hierarchy of, in United States, 447 ; growth of, in United States, 452 ; compatible with Ameri can institutions, 455 ; persecution of, in Germany, 460-480 ; sole aim of, 486 ; in ancient France, 496, in modern France, 497—521 ; relation of Religious Orders to. 505 ; and civil government, 509 ; institutions of, oppressed in France, 515, 516; wins esteem of German government, 550, 551- Cavour, Count Camillo di, part taken by, in Italian revolution, 102 ; uses revolutionary clubs as auxiliaries, 216 ; on ecclesiastical property, 246. "Cenni Storici " quoted, 71, 77, H7, 131, 309, 310. Charles Emmanuel IV. driven from Italy, his character, 85 ; becomes a lay brother, 86. INDEX. 593 China, letter of Leo XIII. to Emperor ot, 402, resented by France, 404. Cholera at Rome in 1S37, 82. Cicernacchio, , resolution of, ex communicating Pius IX., 297. Cittadini, Mgr., death of, 132. Civilization, Cardinly See to arijitiate, 54S, result, 54S, 551-554, 5S4-5S7 ; changed views in, as to Catholics, 550. Gibbons, Cardin.al James, president of Third Plenai7 Council, 441; made cardinal, 459. Giunta Liquidatrice seizes Propaganda property, 526. Giustiniani, Cardinal, excluded from election to Papacy, 5S3, 5S4. Gladstone, William E., Land and Coercion Acts of, 425 ; tribute to, 4S0. Government, constitutional, workings of, on Continent and among English race, 109 ; results of, in Belgium, no. III. Great Britain, revival of Catholicism in, 127, 408-420 ; non-Catholics in, en courage war on Holy See, 215, their joy at seizure of Rome, 296 ; change of public opinion in. 40S ; disputes in, between Religious Orders and bishops, 416, 417, decided by Leo XIIL, 417-420; religious spirit in, 421 ; duty of, to Ireland, 422, 423 ; enforces Coercion and Crimes Acts for Ireland, 425, 433. Greece, college at Rome for natives of, 389 ; proposed Catholic school at Athens, 458, 459. Gregory XVL, treatment of, by Eng lish and American press, 103 ; visit of, to Perugia, 104 ; settles dispute of Belgian Catholics, 122 ; recalls Mgr. Pecci from Brussels, 124, rea sons for, 1 25 ; mortal illness of, his character, 129, 130 ; appoints Mgr. Pecci Archbishop of Perugia, 132, 133 ; intention of, to preconize Mgr. Pecci. 260 ; visit of Czar Nicholas to, 383- Gregory the Great quoted, 419. Guibert, Cardinal Joseph H., protests against suppression of Religious Orders, 504 ; letter of, on oppression of French clergy, 513-520. Guilds, mediaeval, splendid results of, lOI. Guizot, Fran9ois P., on the Papacy, 54°. Hassun, Cardinal Antony (Armenia), deposed by government. 395 ; re called, created cardinal, 396. Hcrculanus, St., note on, 2(m) Hohenlohe, Prinec Chlodwig, ie;,|ion- sible fur German peiseeulions, 4(11 ; letter of, on Papal Infallibility, Holland, refusal of, lo grant religiou.s liberty lo llelgians, log; hieraiehy (¦f, lestored, 411. Holy See alleiu|)li(l removal of, by Napoleon I., (14 ; treachery lo, of N.apoleon III., 2l6 ; right of exe quatur of, usur[ied, 232 ; commis sions Cardinal I'ecci judge in eccle siastical causes, 269 ; ambassadors to, offer homage lo Leo XIII., 316 ; as resloier of civilization, 334 ; bene fits of, to Italy, 335 ; rights and du ties of, 336 ; correspondence of, wilh Russia, Switzerland, 352 ; de signs of, for education in East. 458, 459 ; devotion of French Catholics to, 496 ; sole purpose of, 509 ; value of, when independent, 525 ; its an cient office as mediator, 539, 540, two instances, 543, in the Carolinas affair, 54S ; relations of, with Spain, 549, with Germany, 550 ; probable benefits of, as mediator in U. S. civil war, 554-556 ; some of the du ties of, 571-573- Illuminism in Belgium, no. Ind/pcndance Beige, Le, on spoliation of Propaganda, 538. Infallibility, Papal, how received in Tuikey, 394, in Germany, 460, 462. Infidelity — see Irreligion. Inscrutabili, encyclical, 326. Ireland, state of. under English rule, 127 ; Leo XIII 's interest in, 343, 435, his letter to Cork, 364 ; union of, with England, how cemented, 422, by equal justice and Home Rule, 423 ; famine and violence in, 424, cau.sed by hard-hearted land lords, 424, 426 ; Coercion Aet for, 424, 425, Land Act, 425 ; origin of Land and National Leagues in, 426 ; union of clergy with people, results of, 426, 427 ; National party in, birth of, 426, at first unorganized, afterward united, 427 ; Leo XIII.'s letters to bishops of, 428, 431 ; right of people of. 4-29, their pride as Catholics, 431 ; Crimes Act for, suppression of Land League, 433 ; Dr. Walsh's influence in, 434. Irreligion in Italy in 1841, 102, 103, 106; force of, in 1846, 143; theq- 596 INDEX. ries of, 231 ; in United States, 453 ; in France, 497, 502. Italy, government of, hostile to Catho licism, 33 ; people of, sunk in infi delity, 106, 107 ; conduct of people of Northern Italy on religious festi vals, 135 ; demonstrations in, against religion in 1846, 135, 136 ; irreli gious propaganda in, in 1846, 142, 143 ; danger of people of, 143, 144 ; government of, issues Programmes of Studies, 155 ; sequestrates eccle siastical property, 169, 244 ; com pels bishops to pay tax, 170 ; alone in conscripting priests, 175 ; famine in, in 1854, 177 ; work of Revolu tion in, in 1846-78, 195 ; honey combed by Revolution, igfi, 216 ; violates Papal States, ig8 ; authori ties of, not to be conciliated, 250, 361, interfere with Church's rights, 257 ; raethods of, in choosing priests, pensions suspended priests, 258, 25g; Parliament of, passes Clerical Abuses Bill, 277 ; government of, desires to prohibit pilgrimages at Pius IX. 's Jubilee, 279; non-inter ference of, at Pius IX. 's death, 2g8 ; plan of, for reconciliation with Pope, 327 ; promises non-interference with bishops, 348, promise broken, 349 ; prohibits catechism in Catholic schools, 358, allows full liberty to non-Catholic schools, 358, 359 ; seizes schools in Rome, 360 ; delays Spanish pilgrims, 364, 365 ; pro poses to do without religion, 406 ; becomes an ally of Dollinger, 463 ; value to the nation of independent Papacy, 525 ; government of, seizes Propaganda property, 526, 527, de cision of courts on, 527, 528, action universally reprobated, 531, specious reasoning on, 535. Jacobinism in Italy, loi, 102 ; in France, 496. James the Elder, Apostle, work of, in Spain, body conveyed to Compos tella, 557 ; ancient pilgrimages to tomb of, 558 ; body secreted, 559, identified and proved, 559, 560. Japan, Catholicism in, Leo XIII. to Emperor of, 405. Jesuits suppressed by Clement XIV., restored by Pius VIL , 52; of Viter bo, zeal of, 53, college courses of, 66 ; eminent as theologians. 75, 76 ; dispute of, with University of Lou vain, 122 ; system of, adopted by Mgr. Pecci, 149 ; St. Thomas's meth od enjoined on, 150 ; in Armenia, 3g6 ; in China, 403 ; in Germany, 460, suppressed there, 463, 464 ; in France, suppressed, 507. Joseph II. of Holland, attempt of, at unchristian education, defeated, 116. Journal des DSbats on spoliation of Propaganda, 538. . Journalists, Congress of, in Rome, 366, address of Leo XIIL, 368 ; often dictate policy to religious superiors, 367 ; those friendly to conciliation rebuked, 368. Jubilee proclaimed by Leo XIL, 71. Kenrick, Archbishop P. R., at Balti more Council, 450. Kirby, Rev. Tobias, reminiscence by, of Leo XIIL, 581, 582 Kiupelian, Archbishop, schismatic pa triarch of Armenians, elected, 3g4 ; consecrated, renounces his ranlc, seeks forgiveness, 3g5. Kostka, St. Stanislaus, holy memory of, in Rome, 83 ; Mgr,, Pecci re ceives orders in chapel of, 82-86. Kulturkampf, in Germany, beginning of, 289, 464 ; Leo XIII.'s war on, 351; Bismarck's name for, 363; effect of, on Christianity, 473, effect on the empire, 476 ; still active in 1884, 479 ; extinguished, 480. Lambiuschini, Cardinal, his friendship for Mgr. Pecci, 89. Laurenzi, Mgr. Charles, consecrated coadjutor to Cardinal Pecci, 283 ; circular of, on election of Leo XIIL, 314. Lawrence, St., note on. 268. Legge. , quoted, 297. Leibnitz, Gottfried W., on Holy See as mediator, 542. Leo XIL, vigorous reign of, 63, 65 ; proclaims a Jubilee, pilgrimages dur ing, 71; his humility, 72. Leo XIIL, achievements of reign of, 34, 36. In early life : birth of, 37, 40; his preferencefor name Joachim. 43 ; goes to Rome, 52; epigram by, 55; at Viterbo, 55, 59; at the Collegio Romano, 65; his proficiency, 66.67; chosen as defender of philosophy, 68, forbidden by physicians, 69 ; tri bute to, by faculty, 6g, 70 ; selected to present address to Leo XIL, 72 ; cuts inscription at church of O. L- I.VDEX. i9l of Annunciation, 73, 74 ; chooses secular priesthood, 75, 84 ; again se lected for public disputations, 76, 78, recorded in college journals, 77 ; re ceives degree of S.T.D., lays aside name Vineeut, 78, 79 ; chooses ser vice of Holy See, 79, 8g ; wins prize for best essay, 79; receives degree of D.C.L., friendship of Cardinal Sala for, 80, of Cardinal Pacea. Si ; ap pointed Domestic Prelate, leaves academy, 8l ; appointed Referenda ry to Segnatura, 81, to congregation di Buongoverno, 82 ; zeal and courage of, during cholei-a, receives subdea- conship and deaconship, 82, priest hood, 86. Diplomatic career: Appointed Gov ernor of Benevento, 8g; attacked by typhoid fever, gi, recovery, 94; meas ures of, against brigandage, 95, 96 ; wise administration of in Benevento, 97-99 I appointed Delegate of .Spo leto, sent to Umbria, 100 ; improves Perugia, 104 ; institutes reforms through Umbria, 105; recalled, 107, appointed Apostolic Nuncio at Brus sels, consecrated Archbishop of Da mietta, 108 ; at the court of Brussels, 113; interest of, in college of St. Michael, 115 ; visits University of Louvain, address, 11 7-1 19; influ ence of, with King Leopold, 120; ¦iffection of, for Belgium, 121, for Belgian College, allays disputes among Belgian Catholics, 122 ; keeps Belgium from Ronge schism, 123 ; recalled from Brussels, 124 ; visits England, 126, received by the queen, 127, impressions received during the visit, 12S ; visits France, her condi tion, 128, 129 ; arrives :it Rome, ef fect of his visit to England and France, I2g. At Perugia : Made Bishop of Pe rugia, 132, 133 ; pilgrimage of, to tomb of St. Francis, 133 ; affection of, for St. Anne, enters Perugia on her feast, 133, 134 ; his hard task. 136 ; means used for preserving his fiock, 137 ; his zeal for education, establishes Christian Doctrine So cieties, 144; decrees fixed hours for services, 145, 158; zeal for Diocesan Seminary, 145-149, 154. 155 ; anec dote of, by Brunelli, 14S ; adopts method of St. Thomas, I4g, 151 ; founds Academy of St. 'i'homas, 151, 157 ; care of, for seminarians, 153, 156; his method of punishment, 154; workof,on " Humility," quoted, 154; some pupils of, 155 ; his admirable system of education, 157 ; sanctions Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, founds Society of St. Joachim and Pious Union, 158; his private habits, l5i ; relations of, with Piedmont government, 161, 162 ; advice of, to priests 163-165 ; pastoral of, on Clerical Conscription, 166; Commis sion of, to purchase freedom of cle rics, 167 ; protest of, against clerical conscription, 170-175 ; quells riot ing in Perugia in 1846, 176 ; work of, in famine of 1854, 177, 180 ; or ganizes Commission of Charity, pas toral on, 178 ; work of, in " Massacre of Perugia," 180 ; averts bloodshed in invasion of i860, 181 ; futile me diation of, for H, priest's life, 1S2 ; sued for admonishing his clergy, 183 ; efforts of, with government, in behalf of religious, 184 ; zeal of, for lay education, Apostolic Visitor to university 185 ; Visitor to Collegio della Sapienza, i."C ; labors of, for Conservatorio Pio, i85; founds Con servatorio Graziani, for girls, and Magdalen Asylum, 187 ; founds An- tinori Foundling Asylum, Domini Hospice, 18S ; pastoral visits of, 18R, 1S9 ; works of, for orphans, 189 ; restoies Duomo, igo; churches in Perugia built and restored by, ig2 ; care of, for the arts, skill in finance, 193 ; establishes Congregation of Holy Places, 194 ; character of pas torals of, 196, 200 ; pastorals of, on Magnetism, 197, on Temporal Do minion, 198 ; Pope should be inde pendent, 203, 206; letter of, to Hi.ly Father on Minghetti's circular, 209 ; joins with bishops in protest, 219 ; letter of, to king on civil marriage, 224-228 ; pastoral of, on Current Errors, 231-239 ; protest of, against abolishing ecclesiastical courts and religious education, 243, against sup pression of monasteries, 245, 2|8, protests fruitless, 249 ; manner of, in dealing with authorities, 250 ; tried for censuring priests, 251 ; re monstrance of, on royal exequatur, 253-25g ; Gregory XVI.'s intention to preconize, 260 ; preconized by Pius IX., 261 ; intercedes for insur gents of 1848-50, 262 ; celebration of preconizing of, 262-265, his dis- 59S INDEX. course, 264 ; celebration of Silver Jubilee of, 'i(^is-'2,tiCj, prayers recorded at, 268 ; affection for, of the Peru gians, 262, 265, 267 ; asked to ac cept see of Frascati, judge in ec clesiastical causes, 269 ; member of six congregations, habits, 270 ; Pro tector of Third Order, 270, address to members, 271, admiration for Order, 275 ; to deliver address at Pius IX. 's Jubilee, 279, the address, 280-282 ; consecrates Mgr. Laurenzi his coadjutor, 282 ; appointed Ca merlengo, to leave Perugia, 286 ; pastorals of, on Catholic Church and Nineteenth Century, 287, on Church and Civilization (2), 287-292 ; at death of Pius IX., 291 ; orders body of Pius IX. in state in St. Peter's, 298. As Pope : Prepares for conclave, 300 ; receives twenty-three votes, dismayed, 308 ; receives thirty-eight votes, 309, pleads his unfitness, 310 ; his qualities for the office, 310 311 ; elected, accepts, selects name, 311 ; adoration to, 312 ; proclaimed to people, joy in Rome, 313 ; first blessing of, to people, 318 ; his coro nation, 3ig ; receives homage of Sa cred College, 3ig ; restores Scottish hierarchy, 320, 321, 410, bull on, 4TI-415 ; letter of, to Paris society for artisans, 321, to Belgian society, 322 ; first allocution of, 323-326, encyclical Inscrutabili of, 326-341 ; no compromise of, with Revolution, 328, 350 ; on civilization, 332-334 ; on Papacy, 335 ; appeal to govern ments, 336, 338; on family and edu cation, 338-341; interest of, in Ire land, 343 ; his eulogy of Cardinal Franchi, 344 ; policy of, defined, 345-350, on modern society, 345, negotiations with Germ.iny, 346, 3^1, spoliation of Holy See, 347 ; address of, to Federazione Plana, 355, to Pontifical veterans, 356 ; has to create schools, 360 ; receives Ger man pilgrims, 363 ; letter of, to Cork, 364 ; Spanish pilgrims to, hardships of, 364, 365 ; offerings to, of pilgrims, 366 ; address of, to Ca tholic journalists, 368 ; gives access to Vatican Library, creates council of cardinals, 370; letter of, to Ger man Catholics, 371 ; encyclienl of, on Socialism, 372-378 ; institutes Council of Education, 379 ; nego tiations of, with Russia 384, 385 ; regard of, for public opinion, 386 ; encyclical of, on Sts. Cyril and Me thodius, 387 ; gives hierarchy to Slavs, 389 ; improves Greek College, 390 ; success of, in healing schisms in Turkey, 392-396 ; found.s Arme nian College, 396 ; sends Cioss of Order of Pius IX. to Persian princes, 400 ; letter of, to Chinese emperor 402, to Emperor of Japan, 405, to Shoa Gallas, 406 ; bull. Ex Su premo Apostolatus Apice, issued, 410 ; constitution, Romanos Pon tifices, on English Religious Orders, 417 ; his grasp of Irish question, 423 ; letter of, to Irish bishops, 428 ; on Irish secret societies, 429, 432 ; allocution of, on outrages at Pius IX. 's funeral, 436; why a Pri.soner in the Vatican, 438, 439 ; bull of. convening Thiid Plenary Council of Baltimore, 441, tribute to, of fathers of council, 456 ; letter of, on U. S. Catholic University, 458 ; inteiest of, in German persecutions, .^65 ; skill of, in negotiations with Ger many 473, 474 ; letter of, to Arch bishop of Cologne, 475 ; triumphs over Kulturkampf, 480 ; work of, in education in Rome, 481, 4gi-494 ; on Christian philosophy, 482-491 ; on science and Socialism, 483 ; on St. Thomas's philosophy, 4S5, 488, 490 ; letter of, to French bishops, 505-507 ; sanctions declaraiien of French Religious Orders, 508, oppo sition to, 509, blamed for, 511 ; at Urban College, 523 ; on seizure of Propaganda properly, 528-533, state ment on, sent to foreign govern ments, 533-537 ; asked to arbitrate in Carolinas affair, 5j8, allocution on, 552-554, 584-587 ; restores pil grimage to Compostella, 556, 560 ; as godfather to Alfonso XIII. of Spain, 560, 561 ; Prisoner of the Vatican, 562, 563 ; arduous duties of, 565, 571-574 ; his simple hiibits, 566, 575 ; his impressiveness at the altar, 566, 567 ; celebrating Moss, 563, 569 ; giving Communion, 56g ; manner of, at audiences, 570, 571, 574 ; his breakfast, 571 ; attention of, to details, 572, 573 ; ordinary meals of, 575 ; his labors during the night, 575, 576; reminiscence of, by Dr. Kirby, 581, 58^, Leopold I. of Belgium, character of, LndeX. 599 III ; against denominational schools, 112 ; hisopinion of Mgt-. Pecci, 120, decorates him, recommends him to Pope, 1 26 ; requests Pope to precon ize Mgr Pecci, I2g. Liberalism iu Belgium, 119 Lichtenstein. Prince von, iidvances to succor Perugia. 176 ; induced to not enter city, 177. Loftus, Lord Augustus, on Catholic persecution in Russia, 382. Louis.i .Maria of Belgium, devotion of, to Christian education, 113, 114 ; veneration of, for Mgr. Pecci, 120, 121. Louvain, University of, restored, 117 ; dispute of, with the Jesuits, 122. Mtignetism — see Spiritualism. Maistre, Count de, quoted, 203. Mancini, Signor, untruthful account by, of outrages at Pius IX.'s fune ral, 439. Manera, Profes.sor, establishes aca demy at Gregorian University, 78. Mansfield, Colonel, quoted, 331-383. Marches. The, bishops of, remonstrate with Piedmontese governor. 217 ; sinful excesses permitted in cities of, 218. Marie Clotilde, Queen, driven from Italy, 85 ; death of, 86. Marriage, civil, imposed on Umbria, 183. result, 224, 227; Mgr. Pecci's letter on, to king, 224-228; " De claration "of bishops on, 225, their Remonstrance, 228 ; Leo XIII. on Christian, 340. Maryland, U. S., religion in early, birth of U.S. hierarchy, 447. May Laws, in Germany, passed, 464 ; working of, 464, 465, 467, 468, 472 ; cancelled, 480. M.izzini, Giuseppe, part of, in Italian Revolution, 102 ; desirous of pos sessing Rome, 163 ; on temporal ])ower of Pope, 206 ; clubs of, over run Italy in 1848-60, 216. Merode, Count Felix de, 121. Methodius, St., Apostle to the Slavs, 386 ; Leo XI IL's Encyclical on, 387 ; death of, 389. Miglietti, Signor, letter of, to Italian bishops and clergy, 209. Missionaries, French : Jogues, Goupil, Lallemand, Brebeuf, Rasles, Cham plain, La Salle. Marquette, Cheve rus, Dubois, Brute, Marechal, Flaget, Dubourg, Odin, Marie de I'lncarna tion, Marguerite Bourgeoys, 497, 449, 500. Missionary Herald, letter to, against Latholieism in Japan, 405. Monaco la Valletta, Cardinal, 358 ; efforts of, for religious education, 360, 481. Monte di Pieti revived by Mgr. Pecci, i88. Monti Frumentari established by Mgr Pecci, 177, 180. Montpellier, Canon (Bishop of Li6ge), I08, Mormonism, note on, 421. Murphy, Count, quoted, 203, 473, 539, 557- NaVb Sultaneh, of Persia, tolerates Ca tholics, 399 ; decorated wilh Grand Cross by Leo XIIL, 400. Napoleon I., wars of, 46 ; hostility of, to Church, 49 ; seizes Church pro perty, 49, 51 ; attempts removal of Holy See, 46, 64 ; restores Christian worship in France, 496. Napoleon IIL, designs of, in Italian campaign, 196 ; withdrawal of, from Italy, 197 ; fall of, 198 ; treachery of, to Holy See, 216. Nasr-ed-Din, Shah, character of, 398 ; attitude of, to Christians, 39g. Newman, Cardinal J. H., on renegade priests, 240. Nina, Cardinal Lorenzo, as Secretary of State, 344 ; Leo XIII. outlines his policy to, 345-350. Notre Dame, church of (Paris), Com munion at, 520. Occult Force, in Belgium, no, in ; in Italy, 130 ; plan of, for destroying Italian Church, 322 ; in Germany, 371. 3761 ™ spoliation of Propa ganda, 535. Odescalchi, Cardinal, confers orders on Joachim Pecci, 82, 84, 86 ; leave. the cardinalate to become a novice, 84- Old Catholics of Germany, church of, 463 ; demand legal recognition, 46g ; sympathy of Church of England with, 469. 01iv:iint, Father, society of, for arti sans, 321, 322. Orders, Religious, in Italy, property seized by Napoleon I., 49, 56, struggles of, 56, 57, zeal and learn ing of, 76, suppressed, 166 ; Mon astic, in Umbria, suppressed, 244, boo INDEX. value of, 246, 348, hardships of members of, at suppression, 251, as sisted by Pope, 170, 252 ; effects of suppression of, in Rome, 356 ; dis putes of, with English bishops, 416, 417, settled, 417-420 ; suppression of, in Germany, 464 ; in France, 498, 507, their suppression, 504-510, 515 ; relation of, to Church, 505 ; civiliza tion indebted to them, 506 ; aid of, to the suffering, 507 ; objects of, 508, 509. O'Reilly, Rev. Bernard, works of, quoted, 91, 279, 285, 290, 295, 300. Osouf, Mgr., of Japan, at Baltimore Council, 450. Ourousoff, Prince, insulting action of, to Holy See, 384. Pacca, Cardinal, recommends Joachim Pecci to the Pope, 81. Paix, College de la (Namur), trouble from faculties to, 122. Papacy — see Holy See. Parocchi, Cardinal, work of, for edu cation in Rome, 360, 481, 492, 493 ; weekly report of, 573. Pastoral Letters of Mgr. Pecci : on Clerical Conscription, 166 ; on Mag netism, 197 ; on Temporal Do minion, 198 ; on Current Errors, 23 1 ; on Catholic Church and Nine teenth Century, 287 ; on Church and Civilization (2), 287-292. Patrizi, Professor, leaming of, 76, Pecci. the, residence of, 38 ; names and ages of, 40 ; history of, 41, 42 ; Count and Countess, character of, 42, 45. Countess, as member of Third Order, 58 ; her death, 59-62. Count, death of, 99. Pecci, Mgr. — see Leo XLII. Perrone, Prof. G., learning of, 76; founds academy at Gregorian Uni versity, 78. Persia, Christians protected in, 399 ; princes of, decorated by Leo XIII., 401 ; future of, 402. Perugia, Italy, description of, results of mediiKval guilds in, 100, loi ; revolutionary teachings in, 103 ; Strada Gregoriana in, built by Mgr. Pecci, 104 ; reforms in, by Mgr. Pecci, 106 ; a centre of revolution ary activity, 125 ; popular enthu siasm at Mgr. Pecci's entry into, 134 ; rioting and ravages in, in 1846, 1849, 176 ; " Massacre" of, in 1859, 180, iSi ; insuiTection in, in i860, 181 ; filled with exiles, 182, disor ders caused by, 183 ; institutions in, founded by Mgr. Pecci, 186-189 ; Duomo of, restored, igo ; church of O. L. of Mercy in, restored by Mgr. Pecci, 192 ; citizens of, espoused cause of Gregory IL, 207 ; a refuge for Popes, conclaves held in, 2i 8 ; letter of bishops of, to Pius IX., 2". 9 ; monasteries of, desecrated, 244 ; celebrates Mgr. Pecci's eleva tion to cardinalate, 262—265, in scription on cathedral, 263 ; cele brates Cardinal Pecci's Silver Jubi lee, 266—269 ; joy in, at election of Leo XIIL, 314, 315. Peter and Paul, Sts., centenary, in Rome, of martyrdom of, 162. Philosophy, Christian, 482 ; results of false, 482-484 ; of St. Thomas, pre scribed by Leo XIIL, 485, encycli cal on, 485-492. Pianciani, Professor J. B , in the United States. 68. Piedmont, authorities of, and Mgr. Pecci, 161, 162 ; attempt of, to force clergy to renounce Pius IX., 209-212 ; invasion of Papal States by, encouraged by England and France, 216 ; ecclesiastical courts abolished in, 241. Pious Union of St. Joachim established, 169. Pius VII. ill-treated by Napoleon I., 46 ; condition of Rome at return of, 50 ; restores Jesuits, 52 ; death of, 63 ; induces Napoleon to restore Christian worship in France, 496. Pius VIII. elected. 81. Pius IX., brilliant opening of reign of, 316, 317, its dark close, 33. 34; opinion of, of Mgr. Pecci, 130, 131 ; reply of, to King Leopold, 131 ; re sults of Act of Amnesty of, 131, 136 ; on civil marriage, 226 ; preco- nizes Mgr. Pecci, 261 ; esteem of, for Cardinal Pecci, 267, appoints him Protector of Third Order, 270 ; Episcopal Jubilee of, 277-283 ; de nounces Clerical Abuses Bill, 27S ; protests of revolutionists at Jubilee of, 283 ; affection of, for Cardinal de Angelis, 285 ; proclaims Cardi nal Pecci Camerlengo, 286 ; failing, 286 ; last days of, 290, 291 ; last protest of, 295 ; "excommunicated" by populace in 1849, 297 ; death of, lying in state, 298 ; zeal of, for clergy, 356 ; efforts of, for Church INDEX. 60 1 in Russia, 3S3 ; restores English hierarchy, 408 ; petitioned to re store Scottish hierarchy, 413 ; re moval of body of, from St. Peter's, 436, outrages at, 437, 438 ; refuses to receive German ambassador, al locution on persecutions in Ger many. 46S ; wish of, for avoidance of war in United States, 555. Poland, unhappy lot of, 479 ; proper treatment for, 480. Pontifical Institute, Rome, 494. Pope, treated as usurper by Napoleon L, 49 ; exposition of office of, 201- 206 ; custom on death of a, 298, fu neral services at, 299. Portiuncula, sanctuary of, at Assisi, 133- Power, Temporal — see Dominion, Temporal. Priests, education of, in Perugia, 145- 155, system followed, 157, 158, supervision over, by Mgr. Pecci, 160, 161, his instructions to, 162- 165 ; position of, in Papal States, 163 ; conscription of, in Italy, 166, 348; fund for freedom of, 158, 167, 168; destitution of, in 1869, 168; "Pious Union" for needy, 158, 169 ; protest of Mgr. Pecci against conscription of, 170-175 ; mainly from poor families, 173 ; value of, in a nation, 174; treatment of, in i860, 183; attempts mode on, to renounce Pius IX., 200-212 ; com pelled to sanctify civil marriage, 227 ; renegade, in 1846-86, 240, how received by non-Catholics, their aims, 241 ; of Umbria, effect of suppression of monasteries on, 245 ; worthy, kept frora their charges, pensions to suspended, 258, 259 ; Clerical Abuses Bill, punishing priests, passed, 277, granring to civil courts to decide, 278 ; effect on, of dispersion of Religious Orders. 356 ; Irish, influence of, with peo ple, 426, 427 ; in United States. 452, 457 ; in Germany, how affected by May Laws, 464-480 ; of Rome, education of, 491-494 ; hardships of, in France, 513-518. Propaganda, ecclesiastical colleges of, in Rome, 522, 524 ; praised by Pro testants, 524 ; value of, 525 ; prop erty of, in Italy, seized, 526, 527, appeals to courts, 527. 528 ; Leo XIIL on, 528-537; nbject of, world indebted to, 529 ; its revenues diminished, 531, 53S ; belongs to entire Catholic world, its character, 5 4 ; government's reasoning on spoliation of, 535 ; finances of, in danger, how expended, 536 ; ap peal for, to foreign governments, 537 ; sections of. 571. Protestants, interests of, defended by Leo XIIL, 329 ; nol feared by the revolutionists, 331. Quattro Fontane, Rome, 123. Quirinal Palace, former conclaves held in, 300 ; conclave of 1878 debarred from, 301. Quod Apostolici muneris, encyclical, 372. Quod Divince Sapienttir, bull, 76. Rei Catholica incrementum, bull, 441. Religion — see Catholic Church. Retreat, spiritual, object of, when in troduced, 153 Revolution, French, of I78g, 4g5, 4gg; of 1878, 495-497- Revolulionists the, in Italy in 1846, their opposition to rehgion, 135, 136 ; power of, 143 ; work of, in 1846-78, 195, 209-212 ; cannot bc conciliated, 250; might, not right, their watehwoid, 253 ; hatred of, for St. Francis Assisi, 272 ; protest against Golden Jubilee of Pius IX., 283 ; desire extinction of religion, 296 ; plan of, for reconciliation ex posed by Pius IX., 327, denounced by Leo XIIL, 328 ; their warfare directed against Christianity, 329 ; press of, on mediation of Holy See, 556 Riario-Sforza, Cardinal, character of, 80 ; labors of, death, 284. Riforma, Rome, plan of, for destroy ing Church, 441. Romanos Pontifices, constitution, 417. Rome, the centre of Catholicity, 63, 64; action of anti-clerical clubs in, on Pius IX. 's Jubilee, 279 ; rjibble in, "excommunicate "Pius IX., 297 ; services in. at death of a Pope, 299 ; joy in, at election of Leo XIIL, 313. at his coronation. 320: scenes in, at election of Pius IX., 31(1, 3I7 ; Peo ple of, receive Leo XIII.'s blessing, 317. 318; riotous acts in, at Leo XIII.'s coronation, 320 ; centenary of Voltaire celebrated at, 353, P'0"s reparations for, 354, 355 i pl^n for renovating, 362, no provision for 6o2 INDEX. Catholic worship, 363 ; pilgrimages to, in 1878, 363-366 ; Congress of Catholic journalists in, 366-368 ; Greek College in, founded, 389, improved by Leo XIIL, 390; Ar menian College in, founded, 396 ; outrages in, at Pius IX. 's funeral, 436-439 ; occupation of, denounced by German Catholics, 471 ; promo tion of education in, by Leo XIIL, 481 ; ecclesiastical colleges in, 524 ; crowds in, during pilgrimages, 574, 575 ; universities of, 579-581. Ronge heresy, kept from Belgium by Mgr. Pecci, 123. Rosi, College, of Spello, improved by Mgr. Pecci, 107. Rotelli, Mgr., 155. Russia, ill-treatment of Catholics in, 3io, 383 ; visit of Czar Nicholas of, to Gregory XVI , 383 ; insulting action of charge d'affaires of, 384. Saint Michael, College of (Brussels), 114. i"5. Sala, Cardinal, friendship of, to Jo achim Pecci, 80, 89 ; superintends cholera hospitals, 82. Salvatorelli, Archdeacon, 155. Santi, Dr. Baldassare (priest), con demned to death by court-martial, 182. Sapienza, University of, origin of name, improved by Leo XIL, 76 ; reor ganized by Mgr. Pecci, 186 ; stu dents of, visit Leo XIIL, 357 ; his tory of, 579. 580 ; studies at, 580. Satolli, Professors, 155. Savings-Bank, Perugia, established by Mgr. Pecci, 106. "Scelta di Atti Episcopall " quoted, 165, 166, 168, 175, 180, 222, 228, 230, 239, 246, 249. Scepticism — see Irreligion. Schools, public and denominational, 112 ; education in denominational, 114; Belgian clergy in intermedi ate, 122 ; catechism in Catholic, prohibited in Italy, 358 ; in Rome, 481, 491-494 ; in France, 501, 502. Scotland, hierarchy restored to, 320, 321, 326, 410, bull on, 411-415 ; re vival of Church in, 409 ; Catholi cism in, in middle ages. 412 ; pres ent condition of Church in, 415, 416. Secchi, ProfessorA., in United States, his eminence, 68. Seminaries, the discipline needed in 152. Seminarii Romano and Pio — see Col legii Romano and Pio. Seimnary, Diocesan (Perugia), care of Mgr. Pecci for, 145, 146, 154, 155- 157 ; issues Programme of Studie.s, 155- Siceardi Laws, in Piedmont, working of, 241. Sigonio, , quoted, 208. Sistine Chapel, not used for lying in state of Pius IX. , 298 ; conclave of 1878 held in, 303. Slavs, apostles of, 386 ; zeal of Leo XIIL for, 387 ; pilgrimages of, to Leo XIIL. 387, 388 ; hierarchy for, established, 3S8 ; debt of, to Sts. Cyril and Methodius, 3S9. So- ialis:n, doctrines and history of, 373i 374. 377 \ force of, in France, 375, 510, in Germany, 375, 376; fruits of, 377 ; errors of, 378 ; Leo XIII. on, 483. Societies, secret, in Italy in 1841, 102, 103 ; repressed in Umbria, 105 ; in Belgium, no, 115, 119; in Italy in 1846, 136, 143 ; in Papal States, 250 ; in Ireland, 424, 426, 429, 432 ; in France, 503. Society, Christian, warfare of Revolu tion against, 329 ; evil state of, in 1878, 330, cause, 330, 331 ; mediaeval and iiiodern, compared, 333 ; labors of Holy See for, 334 ; domestic, nursery of Christian virtues, 338 ; cause of modern dangers of, 345 ; domestic, destroyed by Socialism, 378. Spain, ambassador of. offers homage to Leo XIIL, 316 ; senate of, adopts resolution of homage, 319 ; pilgrims from, to Leo XIIL, quarantined by Italian government, 364. 365; title of, to Carolinas Islands, 543, 5 44 ; excitement in, at occupancy of Caro linas, 546, 547 ; cabinet of, protest to Powers, German flag insulted, 547 ; asks Holy See to arbitrate, 543, result, 548, 551-554, 584-5S7 ; relations of, with Holy See. 549 ; exercises right of veto in conclave, 583, 584- Spiritualism, character of, on Conti nent, 197. States of the Church, absorbed by Italy, 33 ; position of clergy of, in 1866, 163 ; violated by France and It.ily, 197 ; the school of sciences and arts, 201 ; war against, en couraged by England and France, INDEX. 603 216 ; swarms with secret societies, 250; part taken by, in Pius IX. 's Jubilee, 279, 2Sj ; usurpation of, not sanctioned b)' Powers, 439. Stockmar, Baron vou, solicits Mgr. Pecci to visit London, i2t). Syria — see Turkey. Talleyrand, Prince, share of, in rob bery of Papal States, 90. Times, London, quoted, 470 ; on spo liation of Propaganda, 537. TertuUian quoted, 41S. Tess.indori, Father, holy life of. 93 ; aid of, in recovery of Mgr. Pecci, 94- Turkey, loyalty of Catholics, in, 392 ; acknowledges benefit of Church, schism in Mesopotamia healed, 393 ; feud in Syria terminated, 393, 394 ; Armenian schism healed, 3g4-3g6, .\rinenian College founded in Rome, 3g6 ; colonies of regulars in, 3g6, 397 ; proposed Catholic school at Constantinople, 458, 459. Umbrii, Italy, reformed by Mgr. Pecci, 105, 106 ; civil marriage im posed on, 183, the result, 224 ; acts of hierarchy of, 184 ; bishops of, protest against government decrees, 219-222 ; " Declaration " of bishops of on civil marriage, 225 ; ecclesias tical courts in, abolished. Church deprived of control of education, 242 ; Monastic Orders in, suppress ed, 244 ; commissary of, disregards restrictions of king, 245. Unbelief — see Irreligion. Union of Preachers founded by Mgr. ' Pecci, 145. United States, Congress of, suppresses legation at Vatican, 34 ; school sys tem in, 112, and in Belgium com pared, ng ; joy of non-Catholics in, at seizure of Rome, 297 ; satisfac tion in, at election of Leo XIIL, 313 ; religious spirit in, 421 ; Catho lics in, 421, 422 ; Leo XIII. convenes Third Plenary Council of. 441 ; early troubles of. 442 ; a religious people, 442, and conservative, 444 ; condi tion of. after Revolution, 445 ; fore sight of people of, 446 ; and Fraiice compared, 446 ; Catholicism in, 447, 448 ; foreign element in, 448 ; growth of Church in. 452 ; irreligion in, 453 ; Church and institutions of, 455 ; Catholic University for, start ed, 457, Leo .MIL on, 458 ; work of French priests in, 500 ; civil war in, could have been averted, 554. 555 ; ambassador to Holy See pro bable, 556. University of Perugia reorganized by Mgr. I'eeci, 185 Urban College, Rome, mission of, annual academy held in, 522, cere monies at, nationalities represented, 523 ; counti-y-house of, sequestiat ed 526. Vanucci, Pietro (Perugino), works of, in Perugia, loi. Vatican, access given to Library of, 370 ; palace of, 563, 565 ; in times of pilgrimage, 574. Vico, Professor A. di, death of, 68. Vienna, Congress of, its treatment of Belgians, 109. Virgin of Gr.ices, church of, in Bene vento, 93 ; Mgr. Pecci lays corner stone for new church, 94, 95. Viterbo College, Vincent Pecci at. 52-55. 58, 59. f'5, 70- Voltaire, doctrines of in Italy, 47, 50, 101, 102 ; hatred of followers of, lor St. Francis, 272 ; centenary of, at Rome, 353, blasphemous sessions of, 354 I doctrines of, in France, 497 ; on Holy See as mediator, 540. Walsh, Archbishop William, elected to see of Dublin, 433 ; unites cleigy and people, 434. Weishaupt, Adam, doctrines of, in Belgium, no. William I. of Germany, present of, to Pius IX., 461 ; says Catholics must obey laws, 467 ; ambassador of, not received by Pius IX.. 468; visits Victor Emmanuel, 470 ; changed views of, regarding Catholics, 550. William of Orange, Belgians resist educational system of, 116. Windthorst, Ludwig von. Catholic leader in Germany, 466 ; bill of, foi relieving priests, 477. Wiseman, Cardinal Nicholas, estimate of. 127 ; his opinion of Gregoiy XVL, 130; quoted, 383. Xavier, St. Francis, catechism classes of, in East, 142. Zel-el-Sultan, of Persia, character of. friendly to Catholics, 399 ; decorated by Leo XIIL, 400, YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 08837 7818 ^^mf^i/msm M'P-^2 fife zSn ¥} nj 4^" % "¦*; ¦^"^